An animal-loving mother-of-two died after being licked on the hand by her pet dog.
Sheena Kavanagh died after the saliva from her pet terrier entered her bloodstream.
The lick proved fatal as Kavanagh had previously had her spleen - which helps prevent infection - removed.
It may have entered her bloodstream through a small cut on her hand.
Her spleen had been removed after being assaulted by a previous partner, although at the time she claimed she sustained the injuries in a car crash.
The infection that killed her was so rare it at first baffled medics in the UK, where the 53-year-old lived.
Doctors thought she had contracted meningitis when she was initially taken to hospital.
Dr. Hiam Ali, a pathologist, said that an organism found in dog saliva doesn't usually cause damage, "but in people without a spleen it can cause death due to septic shock," he told The Telegraph.
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