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Originally Posted by lizzieg  She is under 16 weeks. When would be a good age for her to be re-evaluated? |
The usual guidelines are to test your puppy at 16 weeks and again at 6 months.
I know some believe all puppies should be BAT tested but I waited until Teddy was 8 mos old and only did the test after a seizure as a rule out cause. I did not think he needed a BAT test because he had normal blood work and no symptoms of shunt. If all the blood work is otherwise normal, I do not think it is necessary - that is just my opinion. I just recently tested my own dog Barney (who just turned 10 years old) but only BAT tested him because he had shown some elevated liver enzymes following life-threatening pancreatitis. It's important to remember that bile acids elevations can be seen for many different types of liver disease and not just shunts or MVD. I do bile acids test my dog Daisy, who is a liver shunt dog, twice a year and sometimes more depending on what else is going on with her (and there is always something...)
Agree that in house blood work while useful in emergency type conditions is not a way to go, especially with BAT. I could write pages of how in house blood work was haywire on my dogs only to have the labs show them as fine.