PET owners have been forced to buy filters or give their animals bottled water after saying a rise in chlorine has left them unwilling to drink or even made them ill.

Anne Dutron, of Stour Close, Dovercourt, said her 11-year-old Lhasa Apso, Benny, had an upset tummy for just over a week before she realised it could be down to the water.

"I was waking up and having to go downstairs with him up to four times in a night to let him into the garden as he had an upset tummy," she said.

"Then I was talking to my son, Sam, on Saturday morning and he said it could be the water."

Anne had noticed a horrible taste in her water when she had a cup of tea and had used bottled water until she was able to buy a filter.

"It didn't dawn on me to give him the filtered water," she added.

"Since then I have and it has got better."

Benny suffers from bouts of pancreatitis and is on a careful diet, so Anne initially tried him on chicken and rice to ease his tummy problems but he didn't improve.

She said: "It was my daughter who said last Sunday she had heard they had added more chlorine to the water.

"It would have been nice to have known.

"Our poor little dog has suffered because of it.

"It wasn't obvious to me, I didn't realise it would affect him in that way.

"There hadn't been any change to his diet so we were really puzzled."

After buying a filter that boasted its ability to rid water of chlorine, Anne began using it in her kettle and now Benny's water bowl.

But she put a post on Facebook asking others if their pets had reacted too.

She said: "I wanted to find out if it affected anyone else's pets.

"Following the response on Facebook, although we're not 100per cent sure it's due to the added chlorine, it's a bit of coincidence and it seems to be affecting other people's pets."

A number of residents posted on the page, including one who said her daughter's horse has had to be treated by a vet as he stopped drinking despite previously having two or three buckets of water a day.

One friend said: "I'm giving mine bottled water now.

"I found they weren't drinking much tap water and it wasn't until I read someone else's post about their pets I realised what it could be.

"Now they are back to how much they were drinking before."

**HAVE ASKED AFFINITY WATER FOR COMMENT**