A CHIPPENHAM woman has been living with constant fear and worry after her family’s pets ate poison, which she believes was thrown over her garden fence and left in nearby woodland.

Fiona Edson, who lives in Monkton Park, had let her dogs into her garden on June 29 when she caught them both eating something bright pink.

She rushed three-year-old Simba, a chihuahua cross, and Gracie, a 12-week-old chihuahua, to the vets, but despite taking them in every day for a week since the poisoning on June 29 for blood tests, only time will tell if any lasting damage has been done.

“I woke up on Friday morning and took them out to the garden first thing,” Ms Edson explained.

“I could see Simba chomping on something so I went over and there was something bright pink with seeds in it, it looked a bit like dried sweetcorn.

“I didn’t think anything of it, I just thought it was one of those bird balls so I took it from him and put it in the bin.

“A few hours later the puppy went out to a different part of the garden and I saw Gracie munching on something very excitedly and it was the same stuff that had been thrown over my fence.

“Gracie was due to go to the vets for her vaccinations that day, so I rang them saying the dogs had eaten this stuff and I was told to bring them both in as quickly as possible.”

Vets told Ms Edson, 46, they had eaten a type of poison that hasn’t been available in the UK for over ten years.

She added: “When we took the dogs in they seemed fine but the vets said it is something that can take days or weeks to get into their system. It makes their organs fail, causes problems with blood clotting and makes calcium accumulate in the body.

“It has been absolute hell. I feel very vulnerable and scared, I don’t know who has done this.”

Gracie had to be kept in overnight and she Simba has been given a month-long course of antibiotics to help clot his blood.

A few days later Ms Edson’s mum, Carole Pullin, 75, found her cat Ziggy, dead in a wooded area of Monkton Park, and she believes he had also eaten the poison.

She said: “Animal owners should be vigilant.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: “We received a report from a resident in Chippenham, reporting that her two dogs had fallen ill and she suspected they had been poisoned by an unknown substance.

“House-to-house enquiries have been carried out and contact has been made with the dog owner’s vets and we have not received confirmation at this point regarding what the substance was.”