Viral Facebook post claims 16 dogs have been poisoned around Portchester Castle - but vets report no incidents

The Facebook post on the Voice 4 Portchester group claims that ‘16 dogs picked up poison around Portchester Castle recently.’

The post has been shared more than 390 times.

But Councillor Tom Davies, of Fareham East ward, and a Portchester resident have disputed the claim after calling vets in the area.

Lindsey Sach, who lives in Portchester East, said she had called the Fareham Creek Vets, The Vet in North Harbour and Portchester Vets, as well as Hampshire police - with no reports of dogs suffering for poisoning in recent weeks.

She said: ‘I called several vets in the area - they all said no dogs have come in with poisoning.

‘I assume this person has been given wrong information.’

This isn’t the first time that Lindsey has seen misleading reports about dogs being poisoned.

She said: ‘I have seen other reports of false crime - there was an other report of a mushroom poisoning last year.’

Lindsey, who is standing as a Conservative party candidate for Portchester East ward in the local elections next year, said she would be ‘very upset’ if Whiskey, her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, was poisoned.

Cllr. Tom Davies said: ‘Residents are understandably in a state of hysteria and this has caused a lot of worry.

‘This is a misunderstanding from the original poster who has shared a rumour and created a lot of worry in our area, as evidenced by the number of shares.

The poster of the warning commented ‘the information is from a vet treating a poisoned dog of a friend of my wife’ on Monday.

In a comment, he added: ‘I can’t give the vets name or the dogs owners name for obvious reasons, I just wanted to get people to be careful.’

A spokeswoman for Portchester Castle said there had been no reports of dogs being poisoned on the site.

The author of the Facebook post has been contacted to comment.