DUNGENESS — Cliff Robinson’s dogs are the lights of his life: big, boisterous youngsters who awaken him in the morning.

But on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, they weren’t home with him on Ridge View Drive in Dungeness.

Howie, a black Labrador cross and Moose, a 200-pound English mastiff, were at Sequim Animal Hospital after what Robinson believes were repeated attempts at poisoning them.

Veterinarian Heather Short said she cannot speculate about whether or not the dogs were intentionally poisoned.

She did say Wednesday that they suffered acute kidney failure.

Last Thursday, Robinson, a 64-year-old widower, said he was alarmed to find his dogs had regurgitated some food, and that the vomit had white pills in it.

“Somebody is tossing ‘treats’ to them, laced with what looks like ibuprofen,” Robinson said.

The painkiller is highly toxic to dogs; he knows this and has never let Howie and Moose anywhere near it.

Hospitalized

Howie, a 7-year-old Lab whom Robinson and his late wife, Marijo Page-Robinson, adopted in Blyn after seeing an ad in the newspaper, has been to the hospital twice since Thursday.

He spent all of last weekend there, receiving intravenous fluids.

On Monday, Robinson took him back in along with Moose, who had also become ill.

By Wednesday morning, Howie looked joyful again, squirming and jumping as Robinson greeted him. Short and her staff released him from the hospital at 11 a.m.

But Moose stayed, connected to an I-V fluid drip. Slowly, he limped toward Robinson, looking quite sick.

Later Wednesday, Short said Moose was running a fever, but that she’s hopeful about his recovery.

“He has a pretty good prognosis . . . both were caught early enough,” before their symptoms worsened, Short said.

Robinson called the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office last week, and Deputy Tracey Kellas came out to talk with him and his neighbors.

Symptoms of poisoning

“The dogs definitely are exhibiting symptoms,” of poisoning, Kellas said, though she couldn’t make a diagnosis.

Both Kellas and Robinson are saddened and baffled at they say appears to be an attempt to hurt or kill Howie and Moose.

“It’s horrible. If someone has a problem with him or his dogs, that’s not the route,” Kellas said.

“If it’s an issue of annoyance,” with the dogs, “call the sheriff’s department,” or deal with it in a way other than committing a felony.

Trying to poison a dog is considered animal cruelty in the first degree, Kellas added.

Robinson has spent more than $400 on care for Moose and Howie so far. He is a retired nurse and said he lives on a very limited income.

But “I’ll deal with the money part of it. It’s emotional . . . they’re like my children.”

“Howie was my wife’s very first dog,” he added.

Marijo died of brain cancer last July.

Howie can be rambunctious and territorial, and was Marijo’s enthusiastic protector, Robinson added. Moose, who weighs twice as much as Howie, is the gentle one.

“He just loves people. He doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.”

Dogs bark

The dogs do bark, though. Robinson knows that. They’ve been known to run, in full voice, up to their fence, perhaps frightening someone walking by.

Kellas asked him if he’d considered a surveillance system, to document a stranger giving something to the dogs.

But “there’s 88 feet of fence line and a lot of foliage,” in the yard, Robinson said. “How could you possibly cover it all with video cameras?”

Robinson is having another fence built, so there will be two barriers between the dogs and passers-by.

He said he can understand that the dogs may intimidate people by charging up to the fence and barking.

But “why,” he asked, “would you want to kill them?”

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.