Help Koji, the Gentle Giant, Get His Surgery

Meet Koji, our 3-year-old Pyrenees. Koji means “little one”, which turned out to be fitting for our 80lb little guy. We adopted our special little guy when he was 10 weeks old, and I fell head-over-heels in love with him in a way I didn’t realize was possible. He came to us in an unexpected way, and at a time when I was about to need a lot of love, and had no way of knowing that in advance. He has really lived up to the reputation of his breed of being a “gentle giant”.

Six months ago, Koji started having issues with chronic urination, so I took him to our family vet. After confirming it was not a UTI, and undergoing various other tests to attempt to diagnose his sudden onset of urination urgency, our vet suggested we take him to WSU’s Veterinary Clinic. We waited six weeks to be seen, letting Koji outside every 1-2 hours round the clock to urinate and drink an excess of water while we worried. Once he arrived at WSU and testing began, he stumped the team there as well.

On the second day of testing, the team had narrowed down his symptoms to two possibilities, and sent us home with a medication to aid in symptom-management, but it is not a cure or a long-term solution. When the supervising Vet received the lab results several weeks later, she called me to report that Koji has primary hyperparathyroidism. This surprised her, as apparently this is rare in dogs, and she’s never seen it in his breed or in a young dog. We were relieved to finally have a diagnosis, however the only recommendation for the best possible outcome is surgery, and our family cannot afford the $8,000 estimated to cover the costs of the surgery and the required post-surgical monitoring.

The Veterinary Physician who’s overseeing Koji’s care shared the following:

“For primary hyperparathyroidism, surgery is the gold standard treatment option and is the only reasonable curative option. Medical management with cinacalcet is experimental at best and does not result in a cure for this condition. Alternative procedures are not recommended due to lack of efficacy and concern for safety. Hyperparathyroidism is most commonly treated with surgery and has an excellent prognosis for cure with surgery.

The procedure we don’t recommend is ethanol or heat ablation, which is dangerous and isn’t that much less expensive because it still requires a large amount of post-op monitoring, which is where the bulk of the cost comes from with parathyroidectomy. I’m not sure if anyone in the US is even doing ethanol or heat ablation because of the risks.”

I'm asking for help to cover the cost of his surgery and his post-surgical care. If you’ve ever loved a dog, you get it, and I’m hoping to give our little guy the long, healthy life he deserves. Anything helps, including sharing with your animal-lover networks if you can’t donate.

In Gratitude,

Meghan