[MyFairLacy]

Lacy is a 4 1/2 year old 8lb Yorkie who has always been really healthy. She's very lean..always been on the thin side. She's eaten Nature's Variety raw medallions for over 2 1/2 years and has always done very well on it. She's not a picky eater and normally scarfs down her food. Over the past few months she started having a day once a week or so where she would refuse eat all day and would usually vomit at some point. Some of those days she would have diarrhea, but vomitting was more common. Sometimes we'd go a week in between these days..sometimes two..sometimes as much as three weeks. Last week she was sick Monday and Wednesday...wouldn't eat and vomitted.

So we went to the vet Saturday morning for a checkup. She had an exam, a heartworm check, a full blood panel w/ CBC, and a Bile Acid Test.

Her last meal was 9:30pm Friday night and her first blood sample was drawn around 9:00am Saturday morning. None of my pets or myself ate Saturday morning before the vet appointment as I had heard that sometimes even the smell of food can cause the pre- blood draw to be off.

anyway, her blood panel results were all normal. Got her BAT results today and Pre was 44.5 and Post was 53.5.

Her vet made us another appointment for tomorrow afternoon. She would like to do a urinalysis to check for crystals and wants to do x-rays to check her liver size. She also suggested an ultrasound to check to see if there is a shunt.

So here's where I need advice...I know some of you have gone through liver shunt and MVD with your yorkies and I want to make sure I go about the best route of diagnosis. I don't want to do a lot of unneccessary tests that don't tell us much so I would like some suggestions on where to go from here to best diagnose what is going on. The vet seems to really want to rule out an aquired shunt first....I am more so suspecting MVD.