My dogs liver's failing

dawnie1972

Have had an horrendous 24 hours, Milo my male dog has been off his food for a few days, yesterday morning totally out of charachter for no reason he attacked one of my other dogs putting 5 puncture wounds in her head. Took them both to the vets, 2 hours later and a totally crushed me he has liver failure, the whites of his eyes are yellowish as are his gums, they did a blood test and 2 of the reading were dangerously high, the vet told me she is very worried about him, got some tablets and medicine and need to get him eating - any advice from anyone that has been through this would be really appreciate as i'm heartbroken. Off to get some chicken & fish today to liquidise and try to get him to eat.

rising_from_the_ashes

Awwww Dawnie, so, so sorry to hear this. (I lost my darling boy 3 weeks ago and know how devastating the thought of losing them is).

I know there is one regular poster who has a dog with liver problems and she's seen a huge improvement in her wee boy down to a change in diet.

walwin

I'm so sorry to read about Milo.:(

Over twenty ears ago when we lived in Spain my dog was suddenly ill.
It was his liver and his readings were horrendously high. He was given medication and I was told to feed him on boiled chicken and rice.

I found that when I fed him the chicken which normally he'd have loved I had to make it interesting enough for him to want eat it. He wouldn't eat it finely minced so I used to give him it in very thin strips. I fed him by hand as he wouldn't even look at it if it was in his bowl. I used to give him very small amounts several times a day. Sometimes he would eat, sometimes not but I tried not to make an issue of it as I know he'd have eaten it if he felt up to it.

I can't remember exactly how long this went on for but I know it was several months until the readings very gradually normalised.
The vets thought it likely that he had either drunk black water (very unlikely) or got a rat (extremely likely).

The point I wanted to make was that medicines will have advanced a lot in the twenty odd years so hopefully he'll be able to recover well.

When my darling boy finally got the all clear he had a lovely normal and happy life for many years.

Hoping for the very best for you and Milo xx

chucknorris

dawnie1972 wrote: »

Have had an horrendous 24 hours, Milo my male dog has been off his food for a few days, yesterday morning totally out of charachter for no reason he attacked one of my other dogs putting 5 puncture wounds in her head. Took them both to the vets, 2 hours later and a totally crushed me he has liver failure, the whites of his eyes are yellowish as are his gums, they did a blood test and 2 of the reading were dangerously high, the vet told me she is very worried about him, got some tablets and medicine and need to get him eating - any advice from anyone that has been through this would be really appreciate as i'm heartbroken. Off to get some chicken & fish today to liquidise and try to get him to eat.

Good luck with your dog, I hope he gets better soon, reading the post above it looks like there is reason for optimism. Things like this make the problems of the current economic climate pale into insignificance.

krlyr

I think milk thistle is good for the liver but I'd ask the vet their opinion/whether it is safe to use alongside any medication

pulliptears

krlyr wrote: »

I think milk thistle is good for the liver but I'd ask the vet their opinion/whether it is safe to use alongside any medication

It is.

Ill explain for OP later in more detail (have to run at present!) but we have turned Jack around using a mix of vitamins and change in diet.

Vitamins
1 x Vitamin E (200iu)
1 x Vitamin B Complex
1 x Zinc
Milk Thistle (200mg)
Flax Oil (1/4 Teaspoon)
1 x Glucosamine

His diet is roughly as follows, though lately he's been a bit stubborn and is enjoying the Hills Liver Diet biscuits:


Meals
40% of either: Minced Beef
Minced Chicken
Minced Turkey
White Fish

30% of either: Brown Rice
Pasta
Potato

30% of Courgette
Selection of at least 3 from Fresh Parsley
Broccoli
Carrot
Asparagus
Sprouts
Cauliflower
Swede

Treats Raw Carrot sticks
Raw Courgette Sticks
Cottage Cheese
Natural Yoghurt
Occasional Biscuit (Rich tea etc)

Liquids Cooled Boiled Water
Milk (small amounts mostly in food sauces)

Typical week Jack will have White Fish poached in Milk with fresh parsley and a little flour to thicken the sauce, plus veggies. Minced Beef with Pasta and Veggies with a gravy thickened from the meat juice (Fat Drained) and Chicken with rice and veggies with a gravy again made from the meat juices.

OP, if you PM me your email address I'll forward the PDF we use as a rough guide.

Tulip

Sorry to hear about Milo,Hope he starts to eat again soon.

meames_2

hope it goes well x

Stell

So sorry to hear this.
My dog was diagnosed with liver failure about a year ago. The vet gave us some pills to give her daily and put her on a specific diet (mainly dry dog food and absolutely no oily or greasy food).
Sadly she got worse within 2 months time, in the end she did not eat at all and she could not move from her bed. We had to put her to sleep as she was suffering and we could see her slowly dying day after day. If your dog comes to anything similar don't keep him around, making him suffer for no reason!
I really hope that your dog recovers soon and you don't have to go through all this!
Best of luck to Milo!!!

dawnie1972

Hi everyone, thank you for your kind thoughts. Milo did not improve over the weekend except for eventually yesterday taking some cooled fishy water (i'd boiled some fish and drained the juices) that I put into a syringe then squirted onto my hand as he licked it off so this morning he was admitted to the vet hospital. The vet was fantastic and explained everything thoroughly to me and I left him there to have ultrasounds etc, an hour later the vet rang to say that there are no tumours on the liver or anywhere else, what he does have is a massive inflamation of the gall bladder and a thickening of the fluids in that area (think i've got that right), the vet is hopeful that this is a major infection that has affected other parts of his body so he is on a fluid drip with antibiotics and the vet is hopeful of some improvement in the next 36 hours, if not he will have to have a biopsy, so whilst the news this morning was better than expected we still have a long way to go but are hopefully on the right path. Feel like i've lost my right arm and this weekend my heart has been ripped to shreds, I have 3 dogs but Milo and I are a unit, we fit together, he doesnt work without me and I dont work without him. Please keep praying for him. x

pulliptears

I have a little more time now so I can explain

Jack became ill at the start of summer. He'd been a very lively 8 year old scottie when he started weeing blood. We knew something was seriously amiss from the start I think. To cut a long long story short after many tests he finally went in for an exploratory OP where they find his liver was so diseased they called me from the operating room to ask if they should continue because they didn't think he'd survive. He did survive, and he survived the week after (something else they were not expecting).

Jack was diagnosed with copper storage disease, basically the copper in his food had been storing itself up for 8 years rather than processing through his liver. His prognosis was very poor. Days originally. We read everything we could and formulated a diet for him that we felt would help. Not only did it help he is showing some signs of liver recovery.

I don't pretend that we found a miracle cure, we are four months on now and though we still have a happy, waggy scottie we are under no illusions as to how long we can hold him like this. We know that we probably won't have him this time next year but to be honest nobody expected him to be here for Christmas, least of all the vets.

Milk Thistle is a must. Increase dosage slowly to find a good level (too much can give them the runs). Zinc is also good with Jack as Zinc binds copper. Foods such as asparagus, courgette and broccoli are excellent at helping the liver flush its toxins too so try and get those in his diet.
We found a PDF online which was very indepth and covered all aspects of dealing with a dog with liver disease. The author managed to maintain a good quality of life for her boy for several years using diet and vitamins. As I say if you PM me your email address I can forward this PDF to you.

The liver is a fantastic organ, given the right conditions it can regenerate some function. Even with Jack now he does have signs of regeneration when the OP revealed that over 95% of his liver was diseased. There is no miracle cure, and maintaining a liver dog is very hard work indeed but in some circumstances it is possible to keep them reasonably healthy and pain free.