i am so glad she's doing better and she's adorable. is she eating fine now; after my dog was in the hospital i had to feed her some gerber baby food just to get her to eat and some boiled chicken and rice; however i switched her from kibble completely since she was not getting enough water and was getting dehydrated; i feed her the honest kitchen now and i add digestive enzymes, probiotic and milk thisle drops; the probiotic healed her tummy and the milk thislte drops healed her liver. good luck

She has Microvascular Dysplasia (MVD). Here is a link with more info: MVD and thank you for the compliments! :)



Oh goodness, is she eating? YES! I think the poor thing could eat all day long! lol She is now eating 4-5 small meals a day and I measure everything (down to the kibble, yes I count! lol) and sometimes I feel like she wants more but its important that her daily allowance to be split up throughout the day so I hesitate to give her too much at one sitting (its easier on her liver to have smaller amounts).

She is just your typical puppy, running all over the place and causing chaos. I really need to get some updated pictures and videos (life has been really crazy with a lot of other stuff going on so it hasn't been a priority) b/c I know that you all would appreciate it. I will try to do that soon. I weighed her today and she now weighs a whopping 2lb 15oz! :eek: lol haha So she has gained a lb in the past 6 weeks or so, which is amazing! I am so excited to see her growing so well on such a low protein diet. :D

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement.

You'd better watch out Robin, before you know it, she'll be a big girl! :) That is so great Ginger is growing and eating and acting like a puppy. I know you must be so relieved. Hugs.

This entire story has run the spectrum of emotions with me.
Your first post had me in tears. Not only for your little furbaby but because of you and your hubby. The two of you are truly angels on earth. She is such a very lucky little girl to have such a loving family. You are truly amazing.
I know if I were in that situation, I would also do everything possible for my baby.
I am so very glad to hear that she is doing so well.
I will keep her, you and your family in my prayers.
God bless you.

I AM SOOOO relieved. I am so thankful that we made the choice to give her a chance and give her those few extra hours to pull through while in the hospital that first night. Shew, if we hadn't, I would always wonder "what if?" and that thought would haunt me. So at the least, we decided to give her a chance and wait it through the night to see any improvement... and she gave us hope and look at where we are now. :)

I am just so blessed to have a community of others who love their babies as much as I do mine. I have gotten a few comments from others (family, church members, or just random people) who think we are not making good choices and are wasting our money when we could easy go and buy several puppies for the price of her vet bills, but they are just missing the WHOLE picture. :rolleyes: Sometimes I try to explain, other times I just say "we ALL spend $ on what we value... I value my babies" I don't criticize what they spend on their junk! ;) lol

Thank you. After we decided to give her a fighting chance, we knew that we would do what it took. It has not been easy (emotionally, physically, financially) but these are just temporary sacrifices for a long term gain. I am an unemployed teacher and I was just devastated when I did not get a teaching job in the small community that I live in. I laugh now b/c God definitely has other plans for me (for NOW at least) and its a blessing in disguise that I did not get a teaching job b/c there would've be NO way for me to take a week off here and there to take her to TN and just to feed her around the clock while at work and with my DH's job, it would be almost impossible for him to do it all the time while I was teaching. :D God is great, isn't He?

I have never had intentions or seen myself as a SAHW or SAHM but honestly, I have REALLY enjoyed my time at home with my babies. I try not to take it for granted. God has blessed us with a few different totally unexpected opportunities like foster parenting (skin kids). We are currently in week 7 or 8 (I forget!) of 10 in training and it has just been a wonderful experience so far. We are going through a therapeutic agency and so we will be fostering children who have high needs/issues and who require therapy a few times a month. The agency is wonderful and we take Ginger to all of the meetings and everyone adores her. Seeing them support us in this whole ordeal has solidified things even more with fostering with this particular agency. They understand how we feel about our pets and I really appreciate that.

So that is one of the reasons I have not updated as much as I'd like. We have just a few more weeks to get our house "kid ready". DH and I are both 25 and we have no kids.... so we have a lot of work to do. I am trying to take 2 of our spare bedrooms (one was my office...and now I am consolidating and sharing an office with DH) and turning them into a girl room and a boy room. So I have been scavenging craigslist, cheapcycle, etc to find some good deals on bunk beds, etc. So yeah, I have been busy and not ignoring you all lol I haven't even signed Ginger up for the GE yet and I need to get on that! I need to get her measurements soon.

Sorry about rambling ... what can I say.... I'm a woman :p

I am so happy to hear that you gave this little one a fighting chance and that she is doing well. I read the thread from beginning to end and its nice to see it have a happy ending. I pray that your little one continues to heal quickly and provides you with decades of endless joy. She's a cutie!

Woo Hoo! I'm so glad Ginger is doing so well. (There...that kept me on topic.)

Now......oh my gosh, I didn't know you were nearly that close to getting your foster children!

I know you're busy but drop me a line when you know sex, age, etc. of the kids-to-be.

What fun....and how great it's going to be for them to have Yorkies to play with...especially tending and caring for Ginger. Plus, lucky kids to get such caring, compassionate foster parents.

Thanks for the update on Ginger and really enjoyed your insights on your life right now. Isn't it funny how something bad (no teaching job this year) can turn into blessings? (Ginger and foster parent classes) So happy for you.

I work part time for a child advocacy group and we advocate for many foster children in court. Cannot tell you how much you and your husband are needed. Bless you.

Sorry, got off topic of Ginger, but just wanted to throw that in. :)

Hi I am so glad your baby is doing OK now, and hope she continues to make a speedy recovery.

Well done too on being such a caring person, and being a foster parent, I hope that goes well too.

I am sure it will as you clearly have the qualities, that are needed to make sure it a good experience for all involved.

We need more like you in the world !

Wow, Congrats! You definitely have your hands full! You'll make great parents. :)

WOW ~ So Ginger has MVD and not a LS :confused:
I think I missed a couple pages....

I am glad to come back here and learn that she is doing well.:) Copper's last BA test was post 125, he is 2 1/2 years old and has MVD also. Most days you wouln't know that he was sick at all, changing his diet really helped, he was also very symtomatic before all the changes.

It will be nice to get to watch her grow up and be a healthy, happy puppy. She really has a special mommy to take such good care of her:) I am glad that you found eachother.

Yes, check #129 (on page 5) for the update about having no shunt.

What a lucky little girl Ginger is to have such a loving home.
I look forward to seeing her grow.
You are going to make wonderful foster parents!!
God bless you both.
I will keep you, your hubby, and your furbabies in my prayers.

this is correct about insurances and i believe it is genetic so make sure the parents are bile acid tested and so is the puppy before you get the puppy so you do not get your heart broken again :(

a dog with symptoms of mvd needs to be on 18% protein or less and nb vegetarian is low protein - wow that is very surprising no shunt after surgery wow this is shocking to me too - did the scintigraphy show a shunt? wow at least she was spayed and that is resolved but poor baby that incision is not fun - so did they biopsy the liver and determine mvd ? she must have been on high protein to have displayed such bad symptoms in beginning poor little thing but most puppy foods are high in protein :( still in shock at this news as thought bile acids were a very good indicator and over 100 more a shunt and never heard of a low number like 30 indicating a shunt wow my dd was below 100 but over 25 :( but no symptoms just came up on 3 bile acid tests. Well at least you have a firm diagnosis which is important and maybe with low protein diet she can eventually just eat that and may not need meds in future. I will say there was a yorkie on here no signs and at 3 years old had some diarrhea and they opened him up at dr tobias and he had multiple shunts so i guess it is hit and miss in some cases :(

The scintigraphy that she had done (a month before surgery) was "cloudy" but they said it showed a shunt (it was just not as localized as they'd like... so I fully expected them to do another the day before surgery but they elected not to b/c they were pretty confident it was a shunt. When they do a liver biopsy, the results of having a LS and MVD would be the same. So if she DID have a shunt, there is no way for them to determine whether or not she had MVD with the biopsy alone, it would take months to determine that (if her bile acids did not go down dramatically). Since there was no shunt, they automatically know it is MVD. Does that make sense? The ONLY way for a biopsy to say whether or not a dog has MVD definitively is if they have no shunt. This was new news to me at the time.

So far she has done wonderful with the RCLS and LD. She loves it. She is pretty much at 3lb now (yay!).

Yorkie, possible liver shunt
 

My sister gave me a Yorkie. He's now 8 months old. The vet in Kentucky said when he was nathargic and stuff and blood tests done she felt he has liver shunt. He takes 1\2 pill and 1mg liquid meds everyday at 8am and 8pm! The vet said he can only have water and special food she sold my sister! Reading up on all these different xrays and possible surgeries scares me to death. I'd rather keep him on meds and find other things he can eat. Where can I get a list of things he can have? Thank you all, have a great Yorkie day!:animal-pa