A mum claims her dog has suffered brain swelling as a result of eating an Amazon parcel delivered to her home
A mum says one of her two dogs suffered life-threatening injuries after it ate rat poison posted through her letterbox. Jennifer Durrans, from Stoneycroft, ordered rat poison sachets from Amazon to help with a rat problem in her garden but when they were delivered on Thursday, October 24, she didn’t expect them to be posted through her letterbox where they would be easily accessible for her two Labradors.
The mum-of-three returned home from work to find her dogs had eaten the sachets of poison, with her 17-week-old dog Opi eating 11 sachets of the pink poison. Jennifer and her partner rushed the dogs to the vets where they were given injections to induce vomiting but Opi is thought to have life-threatening injuries due to brain swelling and internal bleeding.
Jennifer believes that due to the parcel not being labelled with a poison sticker it was posted through the door where her dogs could eat it. Jennifer told the ECHO: “We took them to the vets, they’ve been back today (Friday, October 25) to check they don’t have any internal bruising.”
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She continued: “I’ve been in touch with Amazon and they’ve offered me a refund on the poison but we could lose one of our dogs and all they needed to do was put a sticker on the packaging. It’s not the delivery driver’s fault, they didn’t know it was poisonous.”
The two dogs, Opi and his older brother Jax, who is two years old, belong to Jennifer’s 15-year-old and 21-year-old sons respectively. She told the ECHO she is worried about the effects it will have on her family. She said: “I’m quite devastated to be honest and I’m worried about the effect it’s going to have on my son.”
Amazon told the ECHO there are no restrictions on the sale or delivery of the item as the toxicity falls below the threshold. A spokesperson also said they had directed Jennifer to their insurer.
A spokesperson for the company said: “We are sorry to hear about this incident. We are in contact with Ms Durrans and have offered her a gesture of goodwill.”
In Section 3A of the Poisons Act 1972, it says: “A person commits an offence if the person supplies a regulated substance to a member of the general public without first ensuring that a warning label is affixed to the packaging in which the substance is supplied.”
The Amazon spokesperson said this does not apply to additional packaging that the company provides.
