Canine viral infection 'likely cause' of dogs falling ill on Yorkshire Coast
Scarborough Borough Council, the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water have come to that conclusion
There has been an update on the investigation to find out why dogs on the Yorkshire Coast have been falling ill.
In January, there were hundreds of reports this was happening after visits to the beach and in-land too.
Scarborough Borough Council ended up working with Defra, the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water to work out the cause.
Jonathan Bramley, Head of Environment and Regulation at the authority said: "There seems to have been a spike in dog illnesses at the start of the year reporting to local veterinary surgeries with stomach pains and diarrhoea, so this all occurred on the 11th of January.
"The reports that we got were that these were happening across the Yorkshire Coast and as far as I'm aware I think this was also a problem further afield as well, so it wasn't just affecting people taking their dogs out for a walk on the beach but it also affected dog walkers in-land as well.
"The initial concerns were that there was an issue with marine water quality and the Environment Agency and Defra have stated that as far as they're concerned there are no links to any of these dog illnesses and marine water quality.
"The conclusion that the most likely situation, the reason for these illnesses, is down to canine viral infections. There have been no links at all to any marine water pollution at all.
"We had in terms of environmental health about 14 people contact us to say that their dogs had been ill and they had taken them to the vets, but I guess really since the third week in January, we haven't had any further reports since then."