Meat laced with RAT POISON used to bait barking dogs

After a neighbourhood dispute, a pup in Coolum on the Sunshine Coast was allegedly poisoned with rat bait and other poisons, which were hidden in meat.

'Someone has thrown the bait into the front yard where the dog was and it was purely by chance, the owner looked out the window when she had gone upstairs and saw the dog licking something,' RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty told the ABC.

'She was able to get the bait off him, otherwise it was almost certain that the dog would have died,' he added. 

Mr Beatty told the ABC that this horrifying trend had taken an upward turn over the past six weeks due to neighbourly disputes over barking dogs. 

Police are investigating the incident.