Egg Roll

Many times, when we get very young pugs, it is because they have medical issues. Lots of medical issues. Such was the case with Egg Roll. At 8 months of age, this intact male had eye ulcers, a history of eating things he shouldn’t, and was on prescription food due to (per the owner) treat a liver shunt. The owner said the vet told him surgery was not necessary.

Once we got the previous medical records, we quickly noted that the previous owner declined any kind of testing, even though the Bile Acids test is a fairly inexpensive test, returns results quickly, and seems to give a good indication of whether or not there actually is a liver shunt. So it seemed quite unlikely that the vet would have said surgery was not necessary, considering the proper diagnostic tests had been declined by the owner.

I made a quick call to our Finance Director, to advise of a likely liver shunt surgery, as the cost can run anywhere from $2800-$3800, depending on complexity. I also set up a Fundraising page for Egg Roll.

We also noticed that the records indicated a vet visit a few weeks prior, where the vet suspected some kind of blockage that was making Egg Roll sick.  The owner claimed that after a couple of days the pug passed some sort of plastic object and they thought all was okay, but that he continued to occasionally vomit and was not himself.  Obviously, what he passed was only a portion of what he had ingested. I made a note to ask Dr. Enweiller to check this out while he was under for liver shunt surgery.

The Bile Acids test was run, and as expected, the numbers were very high, indicating a likely shunt. Surgery followed that afternoon. Not only was the liver shunt corrected, but a piece of plastic that looked to be part of a child’s toy was removed from Egg Roll’s stomach. The shunt itself was very large, about the size of a pencil. Egg Roll spent the weekend with Dr. Enweiller, to make sure he was out of danger, as the first 48 hours post surgery hold a risk of uncontrollable seizures.
Egg Roll recovered very quickly and was back to his very active young self in no time!

The ulcers on his eye also healed up very nicely, so there was no lasting damage there. He worked his magic charms on his foster mom, and after the required time in rescue and number of events had been met, she signed the adoption papers!