Her unvaccinated puppy died from parvovirus. Then the internet came after her.

As her 4-month old golden retriever fought off a deadly virus, Marissa Alesi was recording herself live on TikTok.

“Thank you to my cult following for giving me the tools to completely, holistically heal my dogs from home,” Alesi, a 33-year-old Chester County dog breeder and social media influencer, said, referring sarcastically to her thousands of devoted followers. “I appreciate you and love you all.”

But after treating Kiwi with IV fluids for 18 hours, the ailing puppy wasn’t getting better.

Because Alesi is against vaccinating her puppies, Kiwi was unprotected from the highly contagious canine parvovirus. Shortly after Alesi’s hopeful message, the puppy died from the disease that affects a dog’s gastrointestinal tract at her Honey Brook Township home March 2022.

“She was just too young,” Alesi told The Inquirer. “We did everything we could.”

Not everyone agrees.

Alesi has over 500,000 followers on TikTok, yet was surprised when, several days after broadcasting during her attempt to cure Kiwi, someone on Reddit had created a forum dedicated to avenging the deceased puppy.

Today over 8,000 people subscribe to the “Kiwisavengers” subreddit, where anonymous users, shocked at what they saw as a preventable death, channel their collective outrage and call for accountability as Alesi continues to skip the parvovirus shot for her dogs.

Moderators boast that they’ve “GOT THE TEA” on the embattled influencer, and few topics are off limits. It’s all part of Kiwisavengers’ existential mission: expose Alesi for what they allege are lies, scams, and shoddy breeding practices.

For Alesi, the real-world consequences — she claims she’s lost job opportunities and has been banned from Carnival Cruise ships because of the group — are piling up.

“I am not the one person on this earth, with 7 billion people in it, that has had a puppy die of parvo,” Alesi said.

She added: “I’ve paid for it more than you know.”

For the newly initiated, Kiwisavengers provides timelines and play-by-play recaps of Alesi’s behavior — one “crash course” catalogs the names and breeds of more than 20 dogs and cats that she’s owned over the past decade.

Callouts aren’t limited to Alesi’s dogs. After the influencer suggested to her followers that the rapper Ice Spice’s hand gestures during her appearance alongside Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl were part of a “satanic ritual,” Kiwisavengers users quickly reposted a screenshot, delighting in a communal eye roll.

A set of guidelines bars comments that mock Alesi’s physical appearance and sexuality, or identify her personal information. Moderators declined to be interviewed on the record, citing privacy concerns.

“We were like, what is going on?” Alesi said, recalling when she and her wife, Angelia (another well-followed influencer), discovered the forum. “What are these people doing? Why are they spending time out of their day to go into an anonymous group … call[ing] us murderers?”

Not all posts are made lightly.

In one frequently repeated story, members allege that as Kiwi suffered from parvovirus, Alesi could have afforded the $1,500 nightly fee for the puppy’s care at an emergency veterinary hospital, but instead spent the money elsewhere.

It’s one of many claims that Alesi denies.

Alesi said she takes accountability for Kiwi’s death, and that she would have spent the $10,000 needed for a week’s care had she had the money at the time.

Broadcasting during Kiwi’s struggle was part of her tell-all approach to social media, Alesi added.

“I’m not going to be that person on social media whose going to make my life look like rainbows and butterflies, and not tell people about the hardships and bad things going on,” Alesi said. “Because I think that’s crap.”

To Julia, a Kiwisavengers follower from Philadelphia who requested only use her first name be used for security reasons, Alesi’s social media usage is driving the negative attention.

“You keep sharing every single thing you do online,” Julia said of Alesi. “It’s like, you’re doing it to yourself.”

Alesi’s attempts to remove Kiwisavengers through Reddit staff, the police, and lawyers have been unsuccessful.

Alesi was particularly bothered when users would mention her family in the forum’s early days; today, Kiwisavengers moderators say they’ve banned discussion referencing children.

That’s not the only toll Alesi claims.

To protect her dogs from rabies, the breeder administers a modified shot at 6 months old.

But Pennsylvania law requires all puppies get the shot at around 3 months. So when Alesi was cited four times for rabies vaccine violations by Chester County’s dog warden last December, Kiwisavengers erupted into celebration.

“This one’s for you KIWI” one user gushed alongside heart emojis upon learning the news.

Alesi believes it was the forum’s users who reported her to the authorities and the SPCA.

“They’ve called every single place that I have tried to get employment,” Alesi said. She alleges she recently lost out on a job opportunity at 911 call center because of the group, despite attempts to keep the job a secret. “I was crushed.”

In another instance, Alesi alleges, Kiwisavengers users reported her to Carnival after she smoked a vaporizer on TikTok live during a cruise, violating the company’s policy. After staff responded and found CBD oil in her room, Alesi said, she was eventually put on the “Do Not Sail” list.

“Therapy was needed” at one dark point said Alesi, who feels she’s paid enough for the puppy’s death.

Despite the turmoil, Alesi has no intent to stop holistic dog breeding. In fact, she said, customers seek her out specifically for her natural approach.

That means Alesi feeds her puppies strictly raw diets, and practices “slow natural exposure” to potential sicknesses by limiting public outings in their early months — that’s opposed to getting the standard, five-in-one vaccine that protects against parvovirus, distemper, parainfluenza, and other diseases.

To the surprise of some veterinarians, dog vaccine skepticism is on the rise.

A 2023 report from Boston University’s School of Public Health found that 37% of pet owners who responded to a survey considered dog vaccines unsafe. Over 20% saw the drugs as ineffective, and 30% deemed them wholly unnecessary.

Karel Minor, CEO of Humane Pennsylvania, said that while veterinarians at the animal welfare nonprofit have yet to find vaccine skepticism as rampant as the Boston University study suggests, there’s been a noticeable uptick in recent years.

“I’ve seen more people questioning whether it’s necessary, what the efficacy is, is it actually harmful?” Minor said of the five-in-one shot. He surmises this skepticism is tied to widespread anti-vaccine sentiment that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minor acknowledged the statistically rare chance of allergic reaction to shots, but stressed the research-backed safety of dog vaccines. He encourages those with hesitancy to discuss their concerns with their vet.

“Parvo is expensive to treat — at best — and is fatal, often, at worst,” Minor said. “It’s easily preventable with a very inexpensive vaccine. The risk to the dog is incredibly low.”

As long as Kiwisavengers remains active, the puppy’s death serves as a cautionary tale.

Then there’s everything else.

“If you’re not keeping up on it you can lose the thread quick because it’s just chaotic,” one Reddit user wrote when explaining Kiwisavenger’s existence. “... it’s easy to get hooked.”