Our pet dog drank himself to death
AFTER a long car journey from the UK, their dogs were hot and thirsty.
So as soon as Melanie Whitehead and husband Lyndon Smith arrived at their holiday home in the Lot Valley, southwest France, they filled a paddling pool for their three pets to cool down in.
But their youngest dog Grub, a twoyear-old Jack Russell, began to stagger ‘like an old man’ and vomited litres of water after 30 minutes of play.
Miss Whitehead, 44, and Mr Smith, 50, who own a website design company, took their dog to the nearest vet, but he died from brain damage caused by drinking too much too quickly.
Now the devastated couple from Stoke, Staffordshire, who had never heard of water intoxication before, are warning other dog owners about the perils of letting pets slake their thirst too rapidly and for too long.
Yesterday Miss Whitehead said: ‘The vets did everything they could but by the time we had got him to them he had slipped into a coma. I was just in total disbelief.
‘It all happened so quickly. We were just hours into our holiday and he was gone. I never knew it was possible for them to drink too much water. We never had children so our dogs are our kids and Grub was so loving.’
She said the vet told her that Grub’s excessive intake caused his body temperature to drop and his electrolyte levels to become so low that it interfered with his brain function.