A woman is mourning the sudden loss of her seven year old black Labrador Retriever called Molly after her dog went swimming in Thorn Brook in Havelock this Saturday.
Lisa Richard says she and her husband decided it would be safe because they saw nothing out of the ordinary, and had let her swim there before as recently as this summer.
“I’d say around three hours later, she started acting a little bit strange, she put her head down and she wouldn’t respond to us,” says Richard. “So that’s when we stopped, my husband took her out of the side by side, he had to lift her up and put her down on the ground, and I called the vet frantically.”
Richard says initially the vet thought Molly might be suffering from heat stroke, but the bleeding gums symptom made him suspect internal bleeding and poisoning.
That spurred Richard and her husband into action, saying they would try to get to the vet in Riverview as soon as possible, but they were more than an hour away in Havelock.
She says within minutes of the phone call ending, Molly died, leaving them heartbroken and confused.
Richard says they saw nothing unusual in the waters of Thorn Brook, no blue green algae, and no strange or alarming smells.
They are both now pushing the government to test the waters of Thorn Brook to see if there is something wrong.
The couple is looking to caution people about the possible risks of letting your pet go swimming.
The Department of Health is working to provide answers about how people can go about reporting concerns and getting water samples taken of areas they are worried about.
This is the fifth dog to have died after swimming in New Brunswick bodies of water this summer.
—
Photo Credit: Molly/Submitted