The co-owners of a prize-winning Irish setter allegedly poisoned at the Crufts dog show have said they do not believe that another breeder could have carried out the suspected attack.
Speaking to the media outside their home near Wigston, Leicestershire, Dee Milligan-Bott and Jeremy Bott said they would return to the dog show next year, saying the poisoning of Thendara Satisfaction, known as Jagger, appeared to be “a random act” rather than deliberate targeting.
Police have begun an investigation after the three-year-old dog collapsed and died shortly after returning to Belgium from the show at Birmingham’s NEC, where he had come second in his class. He was co-owned by the British couple and a Belgian breeder, Aleksandra Lauwers.
Bott said: “Crufts is the best show in the world and we will certainly be back again next year competing. This one isolated incident will not spoil our enjoyment to show and compete with our lovely dogs.”
Reading a prepared statement, Milligan-Bott said: “I need you all to know that we can’t and we won’t think that this was the act of another exhibitor. If we thought this we couldn’t go on, and the last 30 years of breeding and showing beautiful dogs would have been a complete waste. So I ask all of you to unite in finding the perpetrator who did this, and let’s continue to produce and breed our gorgeous dogs who we are all so proud of.
“I certainly don’t want our dog shows – the places we work so hard to get to – to become a ground of finger-pointing and suspicion.”
Milligan-Bott expressed the same sentiment in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview, saying: “I don’t believe in my heart of hearts that this was another competitor or anyone involved in the dog world. I can only imagine that it was a random act that somebody premeditated and wanted to cause total distress at the best dog show in the world.”
There were reports that other dogs were sick after Crufts, including a West Highland white terrier, an Afghan hound and a shih tzu, sparking fears of one or more poisoners targeting competing dogs.
The Kennel Club, which organises the show, confirmed it was looking into reports that up to six dogs were poisoned. However, a spokeswoman stressed that no formal investigation had been launched. She said: “There are any number of reasons why a dog may display symptoms such as sickness and should a dog fall sick there are vets at Crufts who will examine the dog in question and file a report.”
Earlier, Bott told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they had an idea about the way the poison was administered. “When the vet opened up his stomach, she found cubes of meat – some sort of beef-like steak – and they had been sewn up with poison inside. She thinks there were possibly two or three types of poison.
“I think she identified one as like … a slug killer. I would guess that the other would turn out to be a rat poison or some industrial type of poison.”
He said he was not optimistic that the poisoner would be located. “They will hopefully try with CCTV which they have in the halls at Crufts but I don’t think they will be able to find anybody. It’s rather like, you know, the terrorist attacks … They’ve got no information.”
News of the poisoning – among the most shocking incidents in Crufts’ 123-year history – emerged late on Saturday when Milligan-Bott posted on her Facebook page that Jagger had seemingly been killed with poisoned meat cubes. She wrote: “This resulted in a very painful death for our beautiful boy. 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.”
Jagger appeared ill following the show on Thursday, and died shortly after arriving back in Belgium, just over 24 hours after leaving Birmingham. A spokeswoman for the Kennel Club, which runs Crufts, said they were awaiting a toxicology report from Belgian police.
In a Facebook post, Lauwers wrote: “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 and her husband Willem made an on-camera statement concerning the dog’s death. The couple informed TV crews gathered outside their home in Belgium that they had taken comfort from messages of support from well-wishers around the world.
Mr Lauwers said: “We want to bring to everyone’s mind the horrible crime that took place which resulted in the death of Jagger.
“We do not want to think this was an act of a fellow exhibitor. Hopefully Jagger was just the wrong dog on the wrong place on the wrong time.
“We ask you all to unite and concentrate on identifying who may have done this.”
