A family have been left devastated after their five-month-old puppy died after picking up parvovirus on a walk.
Megan Bradley, from Walton, Liverpool, has issued a warning to dog owners about the hidden dangerous lurking on popular walking routes.
She first noticed something was wrong with her Rottweiler puppy - named Roxie - when she began vomiting one weekend.
Parvovirus commonly causes persistent vomiting and diarrhoea in dogs - and can cause rapid dehydration, and damage to the intestines and immune system.
Megan told the ECHO : "From Saturday, she was still eating but she was vomiting up little bits of water.
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"We then noticed that she was having diarrhoea as well, so we thought that there might be a bug or she had eaten something bad, but then she just went downhill so fast.
"She got to the point where she wasn’t moving, she wasn’t getting up to walk. She just wasn’t feeling herself.
"We took her to the vets and they gave her an anti-sickness injection but they said her temperature was looking fine."
However, things took a turn for the worse and Roxie's health continued to regress.
Megan added: "On Monday she went to the vet and then she was drooling, the sickness had stopped but the diarrhoea was really bad.
"By Monday night, she was at the stage where she was basically dying in front of us.
"She was starting to bleed from her bottom and she was breathing quite heavily."
Megan took Roxie to the PDSA vet in Huyton on Monday night, but she was so weak that had to be carried to the car and taken into the building on a trolley.
On Tuesday, she received the call from the vet saying that Roxie was in too much pain to be kept alive.
Megan said: "It feels like the dog has been taken away far too quickly. We haven’t had long enough with her. It felt so hopeless, it’s awful.
"It was a shock. She was the most bouncy puppy in the world. To go from that to not being able to lift her own weight off the floor."
It is unsure exactly how Roxie contracted the deadly virus, but having lost her dog, Megan has advised pet owners to be careful with their pets and to take them to the vet as soon as any vomiting symptoms start.
Roxie was walked in Walton Park and Stanley Park and Megan believes that she might have picked up parvovirus there.
The Blue Cross states that parvovirus spreads through body fluids, including in a dog’s poo and vomit.
It can survive outside the body – for example in the grass at a park – for at least six months.
As a result, Megan has urged dog owners to pick up their poo as soon as possible.
A spokesperson from the Liverpool Vets, based in Cleveland Square, said that they had not noticed a spike in cases of parvovirus, but said that they have seen a vomiting and diarrhoea bug spread in Liverpool each winter.
According to the vets, the best way to save puppies is to vaccinate them. If a second dose is given before 12 weeks of age then a third should be given when the dog is aged between five and six months.
Do you have a dog story to share? Email paige.freshwater@reachplc.com.
