ohmidog!

People magazine has confirmed that one of Oprah Winfrey’s newly adopted and highly publicized cocker spaniels has died.

Ivan, one of two puppies Winfrey recently adopted from PAWS Shelter in Chicago died of parvovirus last week, a veterinarian confirmed. The second, Sadie, is being treated against the highly contagious virus as a precaution.

Winfrey announced the adoption of Sadie on her show March 6 and said she was thinking about adopting one of her three brothers still awaiting homes at PAWS. She brought home Sadie’s brother Ivan, but the puppy came down with a deadly virus last Wednesday and died, said Dr. Jean Dobbs, a veterinarian who supplied the plasma to treat them both.

A spokesperson for Winfrey confirmed to PEOPLE Pets that the puppy died over the weekend, and added that Sadie, “is getting stronger.”

“It was just a little bit too late. All the veterinary community got together to save his life,” Dr. Dobbs said of Ivan. “The puppy didn’t make it, but he’s teaching others how important this is to get vaccinated at the right times.”

Dr. Dobbs is the founder of Hemopet, a non-profit animal blood bank.

The PAWS Shelter has not responded to an email I sent yesterday — and they didn’t return People’s calls, either.

Winfrey’s Golden Retriever Gracie choked to death on a ball in 2007 and her cocker spaniel Sophie died about a year ago at age 13 of kidney failure. After airing a show on puppy mills, Oprah vowed that her next pet would be a rescue.

Sadie and Ivan were part of a litter of 11 puppies born to a dog rescued from Greenwood, South Carolina by a woman attending her mother’s funeral.

Interestingly, news of Ivan’s death was first broken last week by John Yates, head of the American Sporting Dog Alliance, an organization highly that was critical of Winfrey’s puppy mill episode and tried to initiate a boycott of the program’s advertisers.

Through the weekend only Examiner bloggers were publishing that unconfirmed report, picking up what Yates posted on the Internet.