Dog owners in the area of the Crystyl Ranch & Montecito neighborhoods (Concord), you’re going to want to read this.
We have received several reports of two dogs who died recently after going for a walk in the Crystyl Ranch area.
Both messages were posted on the Nextdoor neighborhood website.
Message one:
On Sunday, my husband took our dog (a healthy, 2 year old golden retriever) to the grassy field to play. A little later, after coming in from our backyard, his breathing was a bit labored and his rear legs were bothering him. We thought he might have pulled a muscle while running and playing. A little while later, it was clear that something was not right. My husband took him to the emergency vet to find out that he was poisoned. His rear legs were paralyzed and there was very little hope that he would walk again, or make it through the night. He passed away a short while later.
We will never know if he ate something poisonous or if he was bitten by a venomous critter. There was no obvious swelling or bite site so we think it was something he ingested. Whether it was something in the grassy common area or something that got into our backyard, we will never know exactly what caused our dog’s death.
I wanted to share this to alert the many dog lovers in our community. I hope nobody else has to go through this.
Message two:
Thank you for posting this. Although my family lives in Montecito, we had an experience with our dog over the weekend that has similarities to yours.
I took our dog to the vet for Bordetella and Distemper vaccinations last Thursday lunchtime, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. At 6pm that evening I took him for a walk around Montecito, including a stretch along Crystyl Ranch Rd. His back legs slipped off the curb at one point and I thought nothing of it. 3 hours later he had real trouble standing on his back legs. By the next morning he couldn’t support himself on his back legs at all. The vets x-rayed him and suspected a ruptured disc – 24 hours after that he had no feeling in his back legs whatsoever and we made the difficult decision to put him down.
We really don’t know the cause – it could have been a reaction to the vaccinations, it could have been something he ate on the walk (never occurred to me). He was in no pain – very strange.
So sad to hear about the dogs.
Thanks to those who sent the notes.
