A congenital liver shunt is a birth defect that can be deadly. While inutero, a vein that carries blood past the liver develops rather than circulating through the liver. The liver filters all of the impurities out of the blood stream in the puppy, and when a shunt develops, the blood bypasses the liver and these toxins remain in the bloodstream causing serious health problems for the pup. Cogenital shunts usually show signs before 6 months of age.
ONE SIGN OF LIVER SHUNT IS A DOG WHO DOES NOT GROW!
Beware of those breeders who advertise "teacups"...it may be a problem....
The toxins in the bloodstream will cause serious neurological problems. Pups with liver shunts often have digestive trouble, such as chronic diarrhea and vomiting and may be unusually thirsty. You may also see loss of appetite, depression, lethargy, weakness, poor balance, disorientation, blindness, and seizures. Your pup will appear to being growing very slowly. Failure of the liver to clear ammonia means that there will be increased excretion in the urine, hence the diagnostic test of bile salts.If your pup has any of these clinical symptoms, consult your vet right away. Blood tests will be run as well as a fasting bile acid test. Other diagnostics may be necessary as well.
Depending on the severity of the shunt, treatment may include a low protein diet and medication, but in more cases than not, surgery is needed to close the shunt. The surgery is very expensive and the outcome sometimes is not good.
Do your homework....check out the breeders reputation. Talk to previous clients or the breeders veterinarian. Ask if there has been any incidence of liver shunts. Nothing will be more heartbreaking than to bond with your little one only to possibly lose him/her just a few months later.
Aquired liver shunt usually shows up after the dog is more than a year old. Acquired LS is usually due to an underlying illness or other disease and is not usually a congenital or hereditary problem although it could be.
I hope this has helped you understand the problem. Lots of literature is available on the web including clubs and support groups as well.
Info obtained and summarized from: 1998 Canine Inherited Diseases Database and from "The Yorkshire Terrier" by Deborah Wood & Wayne Hunthausen DVM, 2006 edition.
2 comments:
This may not help others, but our yorkie was diagnosed with liver shunts. Later October, he lost 2 pounds, walked around in a haze, and showed most symptoms of shunts. We had him on medicine, but this was not helping, so we decided to put him to sleep. Thus, we took him off all medicine, and put him on a cottage cheese and rice diet. He improved within days, gaining his weight back, and is now in good health. Again, no guarantee this would work with other dogs, but for some reason it helped in our case.
Our puggle was just diagnosed with inoperable liver shunts. We went the surgery route, but there were just too many to fix. He is now being medically treated.
He never showed any signs of being sick or having liver shunts. The only reason we discovered this is because we and our vet thought that he had kidney stones.
Our new vet/surgeon made me think that this was a death sentence and that we would soon loose him. However since reading and reading about Liver shunts I believe that it may be treatable to an extent. Any thoughts?
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