Demand stronger laws to end the abouse and poisoning of pets by psychopaths

I just lost my beloved 5 year old 26 lbs sweetheart of a dog. We had just taken her swimming in the Neuse river on 09/30/2018 when we washed her up and left her in our dog room with access to the fenced in yard for about 45 minutes to dry up. Her coat would dry rather quickly because she was a shorthair dalmatian/ boxer. Around 5:40pm I fed her dinner along with the other 3 dogs and I got them all back into the house. We are seniors with multiple health issues but we are very careful not to let the dogs bark or bother anyone and they undestand commands. We take excellent cre of our animals and each one is treasured for WHO they are with their vaious little tricks and antics. There was NO mean bone in her little slim body and she was poisoned. My husband and I adopted her almost 5 years ago when the animal shelter staff told us she was not adoptable, we offered to foster her until she was traiined and ready to go. After a year in our house, we decided she was ours and adopted her. She was definitely the most timid dog we had ever fostered for animal rescues and the sweetest one who shook violently before and during storms. She was so afraid of people that when in the fenced in area, she would refuse to come in through the door. When we tried to pet her, she would jump on top of the car or the dog crate to avoid us but she NEVER sniped or growled at anyone. She was a pure angel. It took her about two years of hard work and hours and hours of time and patience to eventually make her come right into the house without avoiding us. It also took her about 3 years to be house broken but that was ok. We were working at her own pace. At 5, she was the perfect dog. She sometimes slept with the grandkids and became passionate about retrieving sticks and frisbees. The smile on her face when she came back to us to give or drop that frisbee by our feet was priceless. By the time she was about a year old, she had grown very fond of us and we of her! By now, she would cuddle with us and show us much affection. She would try to sneak into our bedroom at night to sleep on our bed which we could not yet allow.
We live just one street from the Neuse river in Eastern NC. We are lucky to have a small beach there. There, the dogs could run and fetch and have a ball and lots of fun without us doing the running too. That's what we did last Sunday. We live 20 inutes away from the center of our small town. Our neighborhood is very quiet. When hurricane Florence was due to hit it, we had to evacuate. We were gone 8 days. When we came back, I was feeling extremely unwell and I had to stay home until the physicians' offices reopened with took about 5 more days. I'd let the dogs out in the fence, watched them and let them right back in. They were no nuisance. Then they would come right back in. On Sunday September 30, I felt somewhat better and I decided that it was time for my dogs to have a little fun. Our power had just been restored and things were looking up. My little sweetheart "Patience" had the time of her life. So did the other 2 dogs that we took along and who also loved to swim. She jumped off the dock about 4 times and swam happily back to shore in the rough waters. That was the last time I saw her smile happily and run as fast as she ever did, basically flying....
That evening, after watching the 8 o'clock movie, I went to tell her and the other dogs goodnight. I kissed her and she looked depressed. Her eyes were completely dilated and stuck out of her head. I told my husband that I had to take her to the emergency clinic but we had already taken our sleeping pills and we could not drive at night. I had to wait until the next morning to take her to the vet's. On October 1st, she started to be unsteady on her legs. She started having seizures. Her breathing became more labored. The vet confirmed that she was blind. On Tuesday , We suggested that she may have got sick in the water 2 days before but the blood tests had revealed that was not the case and they looked good. The vet concluded that she had been poisoned with rat poison. We had none in our house and we had no water at all on that side of our house during and after the storm. How could rat poison have traveled that far from the river, passed other homes with pets not reached our fenced in yard and got her sick when she was such a picky eater and the other dogs were fine? All that after 10 days of being there and the ground looking great?The only time she was alone in the yard was on Sunday evening for a short time after her swim. I went to see the man who had already complained about her a couple of times before. He lives on a side street and I can see his house a bit from the dog fence. He said that she had "charged at him and his brother" when they walked on the street by our house before. Honestly, Patience was way too too shy and gentle to" charge" at anyone and everyone in the neighborhood liked her. The children loved her. Her problem was that she had learned to love and trust people. I had seen hera couple of times before, run to people to just say HI and step about 3-4 feet onto the street to do so. Then she would rush back to play frisbee again! Was that a big crime? When the man who had said before he would make her "disappear" opened the door, he had a big smile on his face. That sociopath who never greeted anyone and never mixed with anyone, actually laughed all the time I wa stelling him she had died from rat poisoning.
When asked if he had posioned my sweet dog, his answer was NO, I didn't! I like dogs! I had a lab once! Why would that make him so happy? He added that there was arsenic in the ground and that was likely what had killed her. The area used to be a tobbacco farm 40 years ago and he said it was spayed with arsenic year after year. After living there with my pets for 11 years and living through a couple of other hurricanes, how could the one dog who was such a picky eater have suddenly ingested arsenic coming out of the ground? why would the arsenic suddenly come out after about 30 years of being built up with family homes by both people and multiple pets? Nonsense. I asked the vet about that possibility and she denied it right away. She repeated that my little Patience had ingested rat poison. Nothing else. So after doing all our research online and reviewig all possibilities, the only valid explanation was that someone and someone who had complained before had given her meat mixed with the deadly poison as he walked by and when she was alone in the yard. That person had complained before and he always took walks around that time. No poison could have leaked into our yard and killed her so fast when we had been back for 10 days already, the other dogs were fine and the fence had boards on the bottom and a tight wire all around to keep the dogs in. The yard had stayed dry and the vet insisted that te poison did not come from the water.
Please, request stronger laws for animal abusers and killers. People who may also break a three generations of broken hearts as a result. Dogs are treated as objects but they are family. We miss her terribly and will always be heartbroken because although it is obvbious who did it, all the proofs we have are circumstantial. . Will that animal abuser and true monster torture and kill pets again? I think it is likely because nobody saw it happen. THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER. PLEASE CONTINUE TO WORK TOWARDS JUSTICE WHEN IT COMES TO ANIMAL CRUELTY. DEMAND THAT EVERYONE WHO BUYS DEADLY POISONS ONLINE OR FROM ANY STORE BE A PART OF A REGISTRY TO BE KEPT BY THE POLICE AND AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW WHEN "ACCIDENTS" OF THAT TIME HAPPEN. .PASS IT ALONG ANDF SIGN. OUR GOAL IS TO GET 10,000 SIGNATURES