In early November 2024, several pet dogs died from poisoning in Guangzhou. According to a report from the Guangdong Provincial Pet Industry Association, preliminary statistics confirmed that more than 40 pet dogs had died from suspected poisoning, sparking public discussion.
Such incidents have gradually spread to other regions. In Shenzhen, a "poisoning location summary table" on social media is updated daily. These incidents not only take the lives of pets and bring heavy blows to pet owners, but also expose the conflict between pet owners and those who dislike pets.
It was so sudden.
At 1 p.m. on December 16, in a village in Shenzhen, Da Huang returned to its little kennel after a stroll outside, looking listless.
Dahuang is the pet of Zhou Mu, the owner of a building materials store. Two years ago, Zhou Mu adopted this Chinese rural dog.
Zhou Mu noticed that Da Huang was shivering in its kennel and assumed it was cold or had caught a cold, so he took it to the shop entrance to bask in the sun. It was just as the building materials store was receiving its delivery, so Zhou Mu continued busying himself with unloading the goods.
Not long after, Da Huang suddenly foamed at the mouth and kept barking at Zhou Mu. This left Zhou Mu at a loss; he didn't know if Da Huang had eaten something or if it had been harmed by someone. Then, Da Huang began to convulse, had difficulty breathing, and became incontinent.
Zhou Mu induced vomiting in Da Huang, and the neighbors also came to help with first aid, but the effect was minimal.
At 1:30 PM, Dahuang was confirmed dead. A black lump was also found on its tongue.
It was so sudden. The dog, who had been with Zhou Mu for two years, collapsed right in front of him. He hadn't even had time to contact a veterinary hospital. Da Huang was pregnant, and her unborn puppies also passed away.
Around 2 PM, Zhou Mu's wife returned home and told him that another dog in the village, Xiao Bai, had died next to a trash can. She described Xiao Bai's symptoms as being consistent with those of Da Huang. Prior to this, on November 11th, three dogs in the village had died, all showing signs of poisoning.
In this relatively slow-paced urban village, many stray cats, dogs, and free-roaming pets roam every day. Pet owners and lovers in the village are very grateful for this "harmonious relationship between people and pets" community.
“We haven’t heard of any pets injuring people. Many shop owners and villagers in the village are very friendly to cats and dogs.”
The sudden loss of five dogs is in stark contrast to this harmonious environment, and the various online claims of "poisoning cats and dogs in the village" and "poisoning stray cats" are frightening.
The neighbors who witnessed the incident suggested that Zhou Mu call the police, and they did so as well.
Also in Shenzhen, on September 5th, in a villa community, a giant poodle named Sixteen and a Samoyed both showed symptoms of yogurt poisoning and died despite rescue efforts.
There was a typhoon warning that day, so Sixteen and Yogurt only stayed outside the community for 10 minutes. The nanny who was in charge of taking care of them took them to a place they usually went to for dog walks, which was an open space outside the backyard of the villa area.
After returning home from the walk, Sixteen began to show signs of discomfort, lying on the ground and convulsing. The nanny sensed something was wrong and quickly informed its owner, Zhang Chi, who was out of town, as well as Rongrong, the owner of the pet shop, so they could go to the vet.
While waiting for the car to take him to the vet, Sixteen started foaming at the mouth, vomiting, and losing control of his bladder and bowels, and his whole body was convulsing.
Rongrong took Sixteen to the nearest pet hospital for emergency treatment. The pet hospital diagnosed it as poisoning, and the doctor induced vomiting in Sixteen and gave it a drug similar to a "cardiac stimulant" or "adrenaline".
Shortly after being rushed to the hospital, Yogurt also began to show the exact same symptoms. At 8:37 a.m., Rongrong received a WeChat message from the nanny saying that Yogurt also needed immediate treatment.
"At 8:48 p.m. that night, I had already gone to his house with the doctor and the medicine. At 8:55 p.m., Yogurt was in the same state. When I went to pick up Shiliu at 8:36 p.m., Yogurt was still in normal condition. It was less than 10 minutes. It was so fast."
When Yogurt arrived at the hospital for emergency treatment, Sixteen had already passed away, and Yogurt could not be saved in the end.
Chicken was found in the vomit, but no chicken had been fed to Sixteen or Yogurt that day. Therefore, they suspect that someone had put poisoned chicken in the lawn.
"The rat poison and insect repellent in the villa area are all packaged in boxes, so pets can't touch them."
After that, Rongrong learned that several of her customers' dogs had also suddenly passed away. Some of them lived in the same neighborhood as Shiliu and Yogurt, while others lived not far away. After learning more, Rongrong discovered that all the dogs had pulmonary edema.
"These pet owners wanted to know the cause of the illness. After testing, they said they needed to take X-rays and do ultrasounds. All the dogs had pulmonary edema, which prevents them from breathing."
"How could they possibly have the same disease?"
No evidence
In the early hours of September 6th, in the dead of night during a typhoon, there was a pair of eyes swollen from crying.
Zhang Chi was still in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, when he learned about the incident involving Sixteen and Yogurt. After receiving a call from his nanny, he rushed back to Shenzhen from Jiangxi. He covered the more than 400 kilometers by motorcycle in three hours and arrived in Shenzhen. When he got back, he only found the bodies of two dogs.
This year marks the 11th year that Yogurt has been with Zhang Chi, and Sixteen has been by his side for almost 6 years. The departure of Sixteen and Yogurt was not only sudden for him, but also a very heavy blow.
"It's so sad."
"Sixteen and Yogurt are the cutest, most obedient, most sensible and most well-behaved dogs in the world."
In the monitoring room, Zhang Chi watched the community's surveillance footage over and over again on the computer screen—the footage from his front door, inside the community, in his backyard, and around the perimeter. He watched it all night, hoping to find some clue, but he saw nothing.
The old surveillance cameras had such poor resolution that they couldn't clearly see if there was anything unusual on the ground or in the lawn. Plus, with the rain from the typhoon, any toxins wouldn't have remained on the ground. Furthermore, the view of the nanny, Sixteen, and the yogurt activity area captured by the surveillance cameras was obscured by a leaf.
"We can't find any evidence, there's nothing we can do."
Before he got home, his aunt and the pet shop owner, Rongrong, had already called the police. The police came to Zhang Chi's house to check, "They only stayed for a few minutes, said a few words, and left." They wanted Zhang Chi to find evidence to prove that he had been poisoned, because they needed evidence before they could open a case.
Zhang Chi also kept blood samples from Sixteen and Yogurt, intending to send them to a testing institution to determine the specific toxin in them. The veterinary hospital could only diagnose the dog's symptoms as poisoning, but couldn't identify the specific toxin. There were also no specialized institutions or technologies available for testing pet blood. Zhang Chi planned to find a place that offered blood testing services to have the two bags of blood tested himself.
But later, because his family was too grief-stricken to talk about Sixteen and the yogurt anymore, he didn't continue the testing, nor did he keep the two bags of blood. He simply channeled all his anger and sorrow into longing, keeping it in his heart.
Cai Cai encountered a similar situation to Zhang Chi. Her two dogs died from poisoning three years ago. The veterinary hospital that treated them couldn't detect what kind of poison was in their bodies; they could only confirm that they had been poisoned. Cai Cai paid out of her own pocket to have the dogs sent to Guangzhou for testing and submitted the test report to the police, but the police never informed her of any further developments in the investigation.
She later learned that there had been previous incidents of malicious poisoning and killing of dogs in her neighborhood.
Seven months later, not only was the problem not resolved, but the poisoning incident happened again, and Cai Cai's two dogs died in this tragedy.
After the incident, she went to the property management to check the surveillance footage. At the time, there were only two regular security cameras in the complex; the rest were high-altitude cameras. Cai Cai said she wanted to pay for the installation of additional cameras to investigate, but the property management refused. Due to a lack of evidence, no one could find out who the poisoner was, and the police said they had done their best.
Every year, Cai Cai would post to mourn her two dogs, expose the poisoner's wickedness and the inaction of the original property management, but in the end, due to her family's concerns, she would stop pursuing the matter, and the matter was left unresolved.
People are filled with anxiety
Jiaojiao also heard about the recent poisoning incident online. At the end of November, she discovered on the map app that the area near her neighborhood had been marked as a poisoning location.
Screenshot of the DotMap mini-program | Provided by the interviewee
The residential complex where she lives is not large, consisting of only two buildings. Below the buildings is a concrete open space with some private cars and electric vehicles parked on it, as well as a few flower beds filled with greenery. On the first floor, besides the building's entrance hallway, there are the kitchens of several restaurants and the property management office. Stray cats often dart through the gaps between the parked cars, among the leaves in the flower beds, or into the kitchen entrances.
Jiaojiao often takes her pet downstairs for a walk. A few weeks ago, she found a strange dish of food in a flower bed—a transparent plastic plate filled with chopped ham and hot pot meatballs. She picked it up and examined it closely, discovering that most of the food was undercooked.
Food in the flower bed | Provided by the interviewee
The flower bed was in a rather secluded location, and not many people usually passed by. Since the dog loved the place, Jiaojiao often brought it there. Nothing like this had happened before, and Jiaojiao found the appearance of this dish suspicious; it seemed like it was meant to be fed to the cats and dogs. She immediately thought of the recent uproar about "pet poisoning" incidents.
Without hesitation, she took the plate of food and the dog that had sniffed it to the vet. Since the dog didn't usually eat random things outside and had only sniffed it, the vet told her to take it home and observe it. They advised her to bring it back for further examination if any other abnormal symptoms appeared, and stated that they couldn't test the food for poison.
Unable to obtain accurate test results for her dog and ascertain the safety of its food, Jiao Jiao stood in front of the hospital, completely distraught, holding her dog.
After returning home, she went to the property management office to report the incident and wanted to check the surveillance footage to see who had placed the food there. The property management office said that it was a blind spot for the surveillance cameras and they couldn't see it.
Lacking concrete evidence, Jiaojiao could only continue to suspect whether the incident was related to poisoning. Like the food in the dish, the matter slowly decayed over time. All she could do was post online and communicate with dog owners in the neighborhood, reminding everyone to be more vigilant.
Not long ago, the day after she posted a warning on social media, as she and her husband were entering the building, a cigarette that had only been smoked a few times and was still burning fell from the sky and landed right on her husband's head.
They immediately called the police. Jiaojiao suspected that they might be being retaliated against.
Like Jiaojiao, many people are worried. Searching for "Shenzhen pet poisoning incident" on social media platforms like Xiaohongshu yields numerous posts from netizens who have collected and marked locations where poisoning occurred, alerting pet owners. These marked locations are scattered throughout Shenzhen, and most use uncertain terms like "possibly" or "suspected."
How to characterize it?
According to the "2023 China Pet Industry White Paper," the number of pet dogs in my country reached 51.75 million in 2023, an increase of 11% year-on-year, while the number of pet cats reached 69.8 million, an increase of 6.8% year-on-year. The increasing number of pets means that the conflict between pet owners and pet dislikers is becoming a new social problem.
On social media, Jiao Jiao received a lot of support and care from pet lovers, but in addition to this warmth, she also encountered cold-blooded comments and aggressive private messages. "It must be a farce orchestrated by pet lovers themselves."
The villager who witnessed Dahuang's death couldn't understand the incident or the comments from some pet-averse people. She said, "In the process of social development, many conflicts are bound to arise. When conflicts arise, we can discuss how to resolve them appropriately. But it certainly doesn't mean taking such extreme measures and attacking indiscriminately. It's absolutely not that way."
