A High Wycombe vet surgery has warned dog owners of the dangers of a highly contagious disease that can be deadly if left untreated after six pets were struck down with the illness.

Temple End Vets in High Wycombe says they have seen six cases of parvovirus within the last month. Usually, they treat “one or two cases” of the viral illness a year.

In a post on their Facebook page, the vets described the illness as “horrible” – and warned that it can cause “life-threatening bloody diarrhoea”.

Other parvovirus symptoms include vomiting, fever, severe weight loss, lethargy and lack of appetite.

The virus can be contracted by other dogs through direct contact with an infected pet – and it can also be found in an infected dog’s stool.

The vet urged pet owners to vaccinate their dogs against the potentially deadly disease before disaster strikes.

The cases have been confirmed with “high specificity” lab testing but they added that they have found “no pattern of where the dogs affected live or are regularly walked or where they have visited”.

They said: “For those who don’t know, parvovirus is a horrible disease of dogs which causes life-threatening bloody diarrhoea. It is contracted from the environment where it can lurk for years, particularly in places where lots of dogs mingle.

“We can and do treat these cases but if a dog is not vaccinated then, unfortunately, the majority die. Even vaccinated dogs can contract the disease but in these cases the signs are generally milder and most (but sadly not all) will survive if they are treated promptly and aggressively.

“Vaccination is the only way to protect our pets from this disease and if we can increase the number of dogs who are vaccinated then this will protect all our dogs in the whole area.

“Hopefully this outbreak is a blip and we won’t be seeing too many more of these heartbreaking cases.”

The post attracted more than 150 comments – with one pet owner saying her dog has been put in quarantine at the vets on a drip after testing positive for the disease.

Tina Lucas Richards said: “She's a two-and-a-half year-old extremely healthy dog and is up to date with her vaccinations. If it can happen to her it can happen to any dog. Please, please get your dogs vaccinated. This is not a marketing ploy, this is real. Fingers crossed we get her back well.”