Eva, the beloved Belgian Malinois who hit headlines worldwide after rescuing her owner from a mountain lion, has sadly passed away.
According to her owner, Erin Wilson from Trinity County, the two-and-a-half year-old heroic hound started having seizures at their home over the weekend.
"Yesterday morning around 9am, Eva began panting and shaking. Over the next half hour we watched as she began to show several concerning symptoms. Her overall appearance reminded me of the initial onset of seizures," Wilson wrote on Eva's Instagram page.
Having rushed her to a veterinarian, she was told that Eva needed emergency care. After her condition deteriorated further, she was put on a ventilator on Wednesday.
“She just never woke up” said a tearful Erin in an interview with The Sacramento Bee.
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This tragic event took place just under a month after Eva hit headlines on May 16 after attempting to fight off a mountain lion after it attacked Erin.
Having suffered serious injuries in the assault, including multiple lacerations to her face, Eva spent a number of days in a veterinarian before being allowed home.
It appeared that Eva had turned a corner, making her sudden passing all the more tragic. Erin and her fiancée, Connor, plan to bring Eva’s body back to Sacramento.
“We’re bringing her to Connor’s parents to bury her in the yard,” Wilson said. “Because she really loved it there.”
The news was broken on Eva’s Instagram account on Wednesday, which had 20,300 followers at the time of writing.
“Goodbye my beautiful sweet girl,” Wilson wrote. “You are my world, my light, my best friend. The world is a much darker place.”
While Eva ultimately wasn’t able to recover fully from her injuries, hopefully there won’t be too many more instances like this in the future.
Attacks from mountain lions – whether on humans or dogs – are very rare, with only 20 confirmed attacks over the last 40 years. Hopefully these occurrences will remain similarly rare in the future.
