Last year an apparently new and deadly disease affecting dogs hit the headlines.  Alabama Rot has been determined to cause acute kidney failure and anaemia combined with ulcerated skin lesions on the lower limbs of dogs.

The disease appears to damage the blood vessels in the kidneys and the skin which triggers a blood clotting disorder and anaemia and results in multi-organ failure.  Between 2012 and 2014  thirty dogs were diagnosed with this disease and none of them survived.