AN IRISH RED Setter has died after taking part in Crufts 2015.
Its owners claim the dog, who won second in his class at the English dog show, perished after being poisoned.
However, it is unclear if it was an accident or something more sinister.
“I can only hope it wasn’t an act of jealousy by another competitor, but just a lunatic,” a co-owner’s husband told BBC News.
Another owner, Dee Milligan Bott said, “The post-mortem showed that two or three different poisons were used and that it is likely it was administered on Thursday morning; we’re now waiting for exact toxicology reports. Whoever did this knew what they were doing, trying to get exactly the right type of poison with a slow release.”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for The Kennel Club, which operates Crufts, said the toxicology report is due next week and “until that time we cannot know the cause of this tragic incident”.
“We have spoken to his owners and our heartfelt sympathies go out to them,” she added.
Thendara Satisfaction, also known as Jagger, was almost four years old. He collapsed and died after returning home to Belgium.
Milligan-Bott wrote on her Facebook page that Jagger had been killed by being fed cubed beef with poison “stitched into the meat”.
“This resulted in a very painful death for our beautiful boy,” Milligan-Bott wrote.
The timings from the autopsy make it clear the only place this could have been given to Jagger was while on his bench at Crufts. The police have been informed.
Fellow owner Aleksandra Lauwers wrote: “He loved man and he has been killed by a man!”
“To person who has done it, hope you can sleep well knowing you have killed our love, family member and best friend to our son,” Lauwers wrote on the social network.
Police in Belgium have launched an investigation with Dogworld.co.uk reporting that CCTV footage from Crufts will be examined.
The incident has shocked those attending Crufts, including TV presenter Clare Balding.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say