Pet-Abuse.Com - Animal Abuse Case Details: Dog poisoned with antifreeze

Dog poisoned with antifreeze
Lutz, FL (US)

Incident Date: Saturday, Apr 22, 2006
County: Hillsborough
Local Map: available
Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Virgil William Sluis

Case Updates: 1 update(s) available

Case ID: 8305

Classification: Poisoning

Animal: dog (non pit-bull)

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Animal was offleash or loose

Sluis, 76, of 3009 148th Ave., was arrested again on April 29, a week after Nina Dukes found a neighborhood dog lying in grass, having a seizure and foaming at the mouth. The 16-year-old mixed breed dog later died. "I was doing laundry, and the dogs kept barking," Dukes said Sunday. "After they wouldn't quit, I went over and saw the dog on the ground, and he was seizing. I told my neighbor a dog was dying in their yard, and they called for help."

Witnesses told a deputy the dog was in Sluis' yard eating from a blue bowl before it became sick, a sheriff's report states. A deputy found a similar bowl Saturday that contained a combination of wet dog food and engine coolant. Mannino said X-rays taken after Roxy was shot showed the dog ate chicken bones just before the incident, which Mannino denies feeding the dog.

Case Updates

A 76-year-old Lutz man with dementia will be allowed to remain at home pending trial on charges he shot one neighbor's dog and poisoned another.

Virgil Sluis was arrested April 5 after a neighbor said Sluis fired a shotgun at her 14-month-old German shepherd mix named Roxy. The dog had escaped from a fence five minutes earlier and wandered into Sluis' yard.

Roxy received birdshot wounds but survived.

Sluis was released from jail on $2,000 bail.

On April 28, Sluis was arrested again after another neighbor found a 16-year-old mixed-breed dog having a seizure and foaming at the mouth. The dog had been seen eating out of a blue bowl in Sluis' yard, prosecutors said. Police found a bowl filled with dog food and engine coolant. That dog died.

Although Sluis was released on another $2,000 bail, prosecutors asked for a hearing to revoke his bail because of the second arrest.

Sluis' wife and daughter testified he has been diagnosed with dementia and has difficulty understanding where he is. They could not explain why he had dog food bowls in his yard because he does not own dogs.

Sluis told the judge he needed to have dog food to feed his chickens but his wife and daughter said he was mistaken; he has not owned chickens for some time.

Judge Wayne Timmerman asked why a man with dementia had access to guns.

"He's a dangerous person," Timmerman said. "That could have been a child."

Sluis' daughter, Leslie Cooney, said she since has taken more control of her father's life and has removed all weapons from his house.

Timmerman said Sluis cannot leave his home until his trial. He is not allowed to own dog food or dog bowls and must keep his fence shut.

"One more instance of any kind and he's in jail," Timmerman said. "I don't care about his health problems."

Source: TBO - June 29, 2006
Update posted on Jun 28, 2006 - 9:53PM

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Dog poisoned with antifreezeLutz, FL (US)

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Dog poisoned with antifreeze
Lutz, FL (US)