Veterinary surgeon Dr Matthew Muir treated a further four dogs for the virus.

He said it was “pretty sad and demoralising” that a preventable disease like this has come about in such large numbers.  

“Since September we've probably had 30 cases and that's just confirmed cases,” he said. “The whole reason the vaccine was developed was because parvo is such a deadly disease. It's totally a disease of irresponsible pet owners.

“People either think they can get away with not vaccinating their puppies, or maybe they're totally unaware of the need to vaccinate.”

He said the benefits of vaccination for $80 far outweighed the potential life-threatening virus that could await an un-vaccinated dog. “The cost to have a dog in intensive care for five days is $1000,” he said.

“When someone comes in and says ‘I don't have enough money to vaccinate my dog’ we can either draw up an internal credit agreement or you euthanise, because the dog can't be sent home to die a horrible death of dehydration, which is what will happen.

“We are inundated with very sick dogs and need to get the message out to all dog owners that this disease risk is real, the consequences are life-threatening and we can prevent it from occurring.”

He said during the springtime the clinic had seen spikes in the amount of parvo cases brought to them.

While he did not know exactly what happened during this time to cause the outbreaks, he said there was an easy solution.

“The simple answer is vaccinate them and when people get puppies don't put them on soil until they are vaccinated,” he said. “Some of the feedback that we’ve received has been that people think if their dog doesn't come in contact with other dogs they don't need to get it (vaccination), but if it's (parvo) in the soil and if it's activated, then it happens.”