Dog owner speaking out after pet suffers seizure in Windsor park

It was a normal morning for Marcy Leblanc when she took her dog Regal, the Rhodesian Ridgeback for a walk in Tranby Park. But just moments  later, Regal was on the ground convulsing.

While he’s since recovered, Leblanc says she wants to raise awareness of the danger litter and drug paraphernalia in parks, now believing Regal accidentally ingested a substance while on his walk. 

Marcy says she often walks Regal in Tranby Park and is used to seeing litter and fast food wrappers, an issue she chalks up to the park being open overnight.

But after Regal’s medical episode about a week ago, she rushed back to the park and says she saw a syringe, other drug paraphernalia and broken glass on the ground. 

“I thought I lost him,” she said. “It was an emergency and I didn’t know what had just happened. It was surreal.”

She took Regal to an emergency vet, where they ran three types of blood tests that all came back fine. She says her vet believes he ingested something, which she thinks happened at the park. 

It was the first time the otherwise healthy four-month-old puppy had had a reaction like this, she says.

The vet visit and monitoring cost her about $1,100. 

Mike Bensette and his dog Dexter visit Tranby Park two or three times a day because they live nearby. He, too, says he’s noticed problems with trash. 

“I’ve seen it many times, we back onto the park any night there’s cars here you can see them until all hours,” Bensette said. “I’ve picked up a few things and thrown in the garbage, there were a couple needles … that would be a concern.”

While Regal has recovered — though Leblanc says she’s still a little sluggish a week later — she’s worried about other park users. 

“There’s animals, as you can see. There’s children playing in the park right now, you know, 50 feet away,” she said. 
“Just very concerning here in Windsor and especially in Riverside.

“It’s such a cute little park and I hate to see it go to trash, literally.”

A City of Windsor spokesperson said the first order of business when there’s concern about a park or city facility is calling 311. Staff did not provide comment about the situation at Tranby Park before publication time.

Leblanc says she contacted 311 and a couple days later staff had cleaned up the park. But she’d still like to see more garbage bins in the park, and is looking forward to when gates close the park to cars for the winter months. 

“What people are doing is they’re just being lazy and throwing everything,” she said.

“But they don’t realize how toxic and potentially harmful it is for an animal to consume anything.”