Carbon monoxide poisoning has been excluded for all three deaths. Of course, they will (or should, anyway) do a complete toxicology screen, and that will take months for the results to come back.
I have 3 dogs (and 2 Mud Rooms!) and this makes a disturbing amount of sense.
Dachshunds. They’re schemers.
This plot twist reminds me of the movie ‘A Cold Night’s Death.’ That movie totally creeped me out as a kid.
I will note that Gene Hackman would have been an excellent choice to cast in that.
As are most truths about tantalizing mysteries. They are only non-boring when they are unsolved.
People magazine reports (in part):
A prominent forensic pathologist theorized that it’s possible Hackman could have suffered cardiac arrest.
“So the autopsy showed he didn’t have any injury,” Baden told the show. “There was no carbon monoxide. And he had — the most common cause of death in this country — severe heart disease, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure perhaps, from what’s been released.”
“So the autopsy showed he didn’t have any injury,” Baden told the show. “There was no carbon monoxide. And he had — the most common cause of death in this country — severe heart disease, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure perhaps, from what’s been released.”
Baden further theorized that Arakawa, who was found dead in the bathroom next to a bottle of prescription medication and a space heater, could have found her husband and hurriedly went to grab his blood pressure medication.
The pills found in the bathroom included thyroid medication, blood pressure medication and Tylenol, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Baden said it’s possible that in a rush to help Hackman, Arakawa could have fallen herself.
“She may have struck her head on the way down and had some internal injury to the brain that doesn’t show up on the outside or bleeding in the inside of the brain,” he told Fox Report.
The dog died of thirst.
He was in failing health and had a pacemaker.
The dog too! 
Question for the medical professionals: do pacemakers have a “black box”, as it were? That is, do they record health data that can be extracted after a patient dies?
Yes, modern pacemakers record all data and can even be monitored in real time via a smartphone app or directly to your medical provider via a cellular connection. It does raise some ethical and privacy issues, but that’s a whole other discussion.
The People article gave the time that the pacemaker stopped.
Some are also monitored remotely. My cousin received a phone call in the middle of the night requesting her to check on her husband. When she did, he was dead.
Yikes. And they probably knew he was dead, too. They’d be able to distinguish between an interruption of communications or sensor failure vs. the person actually being dead. Hard to be delicate about that.
All right, here’s a kind of gross question: What were the other dogs, who survived, eating before the scene was found?
The dogs aren’t likely to starve after 9 days. Water would be the bigger issue, but if they got out of the house they could probably find a source (pool, pond, etc.)
Or toilet lid up.
Tangentially, I have an acquaintance that inadvertently locked their cat in a closet for 8 days. Survived with no issues. But I’d expect cats to do better than dogs in this respect.
Yes, my understanding is those dogs were outside.
Someone else here said that the high desert is chock full of delicious animals (their words, pretty much). However, it’s not impossible that they did eat their owners, or even the other dog, if they got hungry enough.
Yes, I’m surprised that it wasn’t being remotely monitored and alerted someone to check on the patient.
And… what? She drank and starved herself to death at age 40. The body wasn’t discovered for a while. Not much connection.