MISSOULA – The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a possible case of dog poisoning after their owner found them dead in her front yard.
Elizabeth Houston returned from an outing on Tuesday to find her two Boston terriers, Buddha and Bailey, on the verge of death in her fenced front yard.
"[I] found them in the yard, they were a bloody mess, both of them," Houston recalled. "They could barely breathe, they had blood coming out of their mouths, their noses and they both just collapsed. They were gone and a matter of minutes."
Houston lives alone in the El Mar Estates neighborhood the incident is being investigated by the Sheriff’s Office. Officials are considering foul play after they found a green substance, suspected to be rat poison, inside partially digested sausage.
Samples of vomit are being analyzed at Washington State University although it could take several weeks until the results come back.
“This is horrible. I just want people to know not to take their fenced yards for granted. Because it’s not safe, in a lot of people in my area have little children come a small children with the dogs," Houston said.
She works in hospice and end-of-life care and her dogs often traveled with her and comforted her patients.
Houston is asking that anyone with information about the incident to please come forward and help find the people who did this. The case remains under investigation.
