A dog owner has been out of her mind with worry after her pet ate a string of potentially poisonous sausages that had been dumped down a country lane in St Albans.

Rachel Ezcurra’s four-year-old husky Nanuq sniffed out a pile of raw meat in a ditch in Coopers Green Lane while she was out walking him on Saturday night.

As soon as the 29-year-old, of Batchwood Drive, realised her beloved pooch had eaten some of the discarded food she rushed him to the vets fearing it might have been contaminated.

She said: “I let my dog off the lead and he disappeared down one of the ditches and I called him but he would not come back. I pulled him out and he had fresh-looking sausages in his mouth. It looked like someone had thrown a lot of different meat down there.”

The vet was unable to confirm whether the meat did contain any substances but as a precaution gave Nanuq some medication to ensure any dangerous poisons were removed from his body.

Rachel went on: “My dad came to the vets with me and when the vet was describing the symptoms of a dog that has been poisoned he got really upset.

“That scared me because my dog is my support, he stops me having panic attacks and I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him.”

When she got Nanuq home he could barely stand up and over the next few days continued to be uncharacteristically lethargic and unsteady on his feet.

Worried the sausages may have contained anti-freeze, she took him back for further testing on Tuesday and is now waiting for the results.

So far the incident has cost Rachel £1,000 in veterinary bills, and she was warned other dog owners to be extra vigilant when walking their dogs in the area, adding: “I would never have thought someone would do that [contaminate meat] but now I am really suspicious and I don’t want to let him off the lead again.”