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We often recommend prescription diets for our patients to maintain good health post illness or to help manage medical conditions.
Amie, our nurse receptionist, wanted to share her dog Harley's story to show how effective these diets can be.
Diagnosis: Portosystemic shunts
In February 2014, we noticed that our kelpie dog Harley had lost weight. We thought that this was due to us bringing a new puppy into the household & him becoming stressed. But over the course of the next 4 months Harley continued to lose weight & so we decided to take him into see the vet to get him health checked. When weighing Harley we noticed that he had lost a total of 6.5kg over the course of 4 months! He went from a healthy 23kg down to 16.5kg, which is extreme weight loss for a dog.
Dr Genevieve Payne gave Harley a health check & recommended a blood test be performed to check for any abnormalities present. The results indicated that Harley's liver enzymes were extremely high. The next steps were to perform an ultrasound & an exploratory laparotomy to see what was happening inside Harley. She took a sample of Harley’s liver & sent it away for testing. When the results came back Harley was diagnosed with Portosystemic shunts. This is when there is a bypass of the body’s circulatory system, meaning that little absorption of nutrients occurs. Harley’s condition was caused by the failure of his foetal (in the womb) circulatory system to change when he was born.
Unfortunately there was nothing that we could do surgically to treat Harley for his condition, but instead we decided that placing him on Hills L/D dog food would help him to absorb as many nutrients as possible. After 1 year, Harley returned for his annual health check & blood test & to our surprise, his blood results were all normal! The Hills L/D food had returned him back to a healthy 21.5kg, he seems a much more relaxed & happy dog & his liver enzymes were all normal....and Harley loves his L/D diet kibble.
We have our happy boy back again!
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