The Cruel Poisoning of Seattle’s Street Dogs
An 1885 report reveals a string of violent animal deaths in Seattle, sparking public outrage against those using strychnine in the city streets.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Saturday night, some men who had evidently been too much stirred by whiskey, did a very industrious and reprehensible act of the premises by throwing a number of strychnine bones. There have been cases when young children have been taken up and put to their mouths, poisoned by these throws, to the dogs, and died from the effects. A case of this kind occurred in Walla Walla a year ago. Had the person poisoned the vicious dog, it would have been all right to have put him out of the way, but to slaughter 15 or 20 dogs, many of them available animals, that resulted in the death of Mr. Shepherd's dog, is certainly not right, and the offender, if known, should be punished.
“Some men who had evidently been too much stirred by whiskey, did a very industrious and reprehensible act.”
While municipal policies on animal control have evolved, the tension regarding the treatment of stray animals in dense urban environments—and the public's visceral reaction to neighborhood cruelty—remains a persistent echo in Seattle's civic discourse.
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