Liver shunt?

Hi.
Today we have to put our shih tzu, Madison to sleep... :cry:
It was a horribly sad day...

We were told she had a "liver shunt"?
Could anyone explain to me what this is?

Thanks :cry:

 

Sorry to hear about Madison
Liver shunts are basically that the blood vessels the liver never closed up during birth, the degree of the shunt varies. Many puppies born with this dont live more than a few weeks although with a minor shunt they can live for a couple of years. The liver gets rid of the toxicities in the blood but with a shunt the blood, or some of it doesnt go through the liver to be detoxified, usually the symptoms in very small puppies is that they fail to grow/thrive and start having seizures, surgery can be done in some cases to close/tie off the shunt.
There are slightly different types of shunts and they can be either around the liver or inside it. There are also other types but Im not a vet and its pretty complex. Sorry :?
Heres a website that explains it pretty well,

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm ... icleid=882

 

Thanks. They couldn't do surgery because she was so small and her blood sugar was low and it would drop in surgery.
But thanks that helped me understand what was going on...so now I know shes in a better place, and not suffering :cry:

thanks

 

i wanted to ask...

shouldn't the breeder know about the puppy having this disese before the pup is sold. if its a good breeder that has their pups vet checked...shouldn't they know?

 

I'me very sorry for the loss of your puppy.

In regards to the vet checking question you sort of have to be careful. Vet checking can mean anything from a vet looking at a puppy and saying that it looks healthy enough or can include running tests to make sure that there are no underlying illnesses or problems.

 

The breeder most likely didnt know, when they go downhill at an early age most of the ones Ive seen are PTS at the time, not saying there were no signs, maybe not growing as rapidly as she should or kept up with the other pups growth rate, maybe not eating as well as the other pups but there may not have been anything that really stood out to the breeder as being a life threatening illness, may have appeared to be a runt of the litter (Im just generalizing here as obviously I have no idea of Madisons condition when you got her or before then), often the first sign the breeder sees is the seizures or coma due to the blood glucose levels dropping. The shunts can be varying degrees so a smaller one may not show up until later. Sorry, probably not much help, maybe your vet could give you more answers to you questions based on his/her finding on the examinations they did.

 

Most of the things you said, she had....

She was not eating, she was only one pound at 9 weeks, so im guessing she may have had a growth problem...

My mom e-mails the breeder just letting him know of the situation....and he was very rude and immature...I was thinking about putting the e-mails up here for yall to see, if you think thats would be a good idea let me know and you could give me your opinion....

thanks for the information...getting all the info i can and putting things into their place is really helping me cope....

 

I am so sorry to hear you lost your dog. When my beagel Roscoe was about 6 months old he started with the same symptoms you described. After several exams they finally figured out that he too had liver shunts. By this time we were so attached to him that putting him down was no option. we had to immeaditaly have surgery done on him at the University of Penn animal hospital. The surgery was about 6,000$ and his chances were about 50/50 but after all was said and done and the operation was succesfull.However they told us that this operation was likely to cut a few years off his lifespan. After that we couldnt bare to put him through another opperation to have him nutered and he is now 9 years old and starting with problems with his prostate and tumors in his testicle. Infact he is at the vet hospital as im writing this and Im waiting to hear from the vet on his condition. So im praying that all goes well and if we have to have him nutered this too will work out. But again I am verry sorry for the lost of you pet/best friend. My heart really goes out to you !