If a dog came into MY garden and ate rat poison…. Am I held responsible?

[PinkBump2022]

If a neighbour let hers dog roam and it then comes into my garden and eats rat poison and something bad happens to the dog, am I responsible for its death or the owner… or nobody?

Well I should think the owner would be feeling pretty guilty for her lack of care. It was only a matter of time before the poor dog was injured in some way if it was left to roam the streets.
The OP has said that the owner was watching the dog shit in the OP's garden. It wasn't roaming the streets.

I wonder how many other innocent animals have been poisoned due to the op's stupidity. 😔

To be fair, rats do exactly that given half a chance, which is why, in the tamper proof boxes there’s a bar which the poison blocks are threaded onto, so the rat has to stay in the box while it eats it.

I can’t believe anyone is stupid enough to put poison out with no box. It’s written in huge letters on every pack of poison that it must be in a locked box. What if a child had picked it up FFS.

She also said in the OP that she lets the dog roam. So my point was that if this was a regular occurrence the poor dog was bound to be injured in some way or lost/stolen one day.

And even in this instance the dog was out of sight and not being cared for and supervised properly whether the owner was standing there or not 🤷🏽‍♀️

I do agree the dog owner was irresponsible. However the OP broke the law with regards to the laying down of rat poison. Laws that are designed to protect both domestic and wild animals.

As someone who has lost a dog to poisoning, I hope you feel really shit about yourself right now.

prh47Bridge is a lawyer.

I bet you wished you hadn’t acknowledged that what the dog was eating was poison out there by you!

Rat poison is horrible stuff. Our council dealt with a huge infestation at a park with loads of bait traps. Within weeks people reported dogs (especially terrier types) dead and ill, and many dead cries etc were observed, but the council accepted no responsibility.

One reason why people shouldn’t chuck bread everywhere, over-feeding ducks in stuff that is bad for them and feeds huge populations of rats.

Liability for rat poison on private property eaten by a trespassing neighbouring dog.

Despite views that such liability falls on the landowner I take a contrary view. The Occupiers Liability Act Act protects adults and laterally children. The Act does not protect trespassing dogs.

Zombie

I don't normally respond to posts on zombie threads, but in this case I will make an exception.

The Occupiers Liability Acts (there are two of them) are specifically about the liability an occupier has if people are injured due to a failure to maintain the premises properly. They do not limit an owner's or occupier's liability due to other acts. For example, they don't say anything about the owner's liability if, due to a failure to maintain their property, something falls off it causing damage to a neighbour's property or a passing car, but the owner is clearly liable if this happens. This is basic stuff. If you are negligent and someone else suffers injury or loss due to your negligence, you are liable.

The laws around pesticides such as rat poison require the user to take adequate precautions to ensure the pesticide does not cause any harm to non-targeted species, whether they be the pets or wild animals. If a pet consumes rat poison and dies, it is likely that the person who used the poison was negligent and is therefore liable for the damage caused.

Just a word of warning for anyone using the secure black rat boxes. neighbours had rats nesting and occasionally coming over the fence into our garden. I'd put down a rat box with poison inside and hidden the box behind a shed where I knew the rats were running, One day my dogs were acting up to get behind the shed and i thought a rat was trapped so pulled the shed out. There, lying on the ground, was the lump of rat poison, Rats had pulled it from the 'secure' box. Fortunately I got it before the dogs did