A friend of a friend's puppy has died recently. She was 6 months old. The weekend before she died the owner had taken her to the beech, and the pup together with the owners four other Spaniels were playing in the sea. She was jumping around, splashing about and putting her head under the water but did not appear to be drinking it.

A few days later she seemed unwell, then the next day she died. Upon a post-mortem it seemed that she had excessive levels of salt in her organs which killed her.

The vet said, before now he has advised puppy owners not to take them in the sea before they are 2 years old! Obviously the puppy owner is distraught especially since it was her first home bred puppy. We had not heard this before about sea water.

Has anybody else? Is it even possible for sea water to be absorbed into the body in such a way? I can't see how one outing to the sea could kill a dog! Our dogs have been to the sea side and drank it when they were puppy's and there didn't seem to be a problem.. maybe we were lucky.

Just a warning!

Thanks for posting this.  My older cocker loves swimming in the sea but is often sick (vomiting) afterwards - I shall be much more careful with her and my pup after reading this.

I visited a friend with my girls she lives in Scotland near to the beach so we went there everyday after only being on the beach half hour or so two of my three dogs had diahorrea like water bright yellow ( I thought it was the change of water as we live in the Northwest  they dont get to the sea that often) I did the usual bought bottle water, starved , next day they were fine , off to the beach same again....

I put this down to the sea water never thought about it being the amount of salt they have possible taken in ... when we go to the beach at home they dont get near the sea....ugh!

Had a similar experience many yers ago with two of our girls (sadly no longer with us now) on a beach on the Norfolk coast, we had been there many times before with no problems then on the last occasion we went there they were both quite poorly for about a week, my hubby had noticed a pipe going a few yards into the sea that had not been there before, we wondered if it had anything to do with that as we don't know what was coming out of it! They & all of our other dogs have been to the sea without any problems since except for one who always drinks loads & is then sick once afterwards, we put that down to the salt water, but she is then fine.

Thanks for this info I am really sorry to hear about your friend's puppy :(

We take our dogs to the sea and one of them always drinks sea water we can't stop him, have tried on many occasions and it is impossible, he is usually sick or has the runs afterwards and we always think he will learn but he doesn't.  Thanks for letting me know about this we will be far more careful about him going into the sea in future.

I too take Lillie to the beach alot and she drinks the sea water, i too have tried to stop her, but she's never been sick or ill afterwards. Its very scarey to think this could happen, your poor friend must be devastated, im so so sorry to hear about her pup.
Thank you for posting this to make us aware.

another problem with the sea water is the amount of sand that the waves carry. if the dog is drinking the water or its just splashing around the sand can be ingested and it settles in the stomach.

a vet told me that this can cause Bloat like symptoms as the stomach has problems getting rid of the sand.

The sea probably covers many hidden dangers.