Help Montgomery keep fighting!

Montgomery came into our lives at a time when we needed her the most. I truly believe that she was sent by her biggest sister, who died before she was born. Since she was a tiny puppy, she approached everything with profound curiosity and fearlessness. At almost 4 years old, she is still very much a puppy, very happy and so very snuggly.

Two years ago, routine bloodwork before her spay revealed elevated liver enzymes. We had her liver biopsied during her spay and sent it off for testing. Quantitative testing indicated potential for copper hepatopathy or hepatitis, but the results were maddeningly inconclusive. With little to go on, we put her on hepatic kibble and started giving her distilled water last fall after her most recent bloodwork still showed elevated enzymes—we discovered we have copper pipes. We also moved her onto a homemade diet with a beef foundation.

However, that wasn’t enough, and now she seems to be in advanced liver failure and we are going through diagnostics, imaging, and more testing. She will likely need another biopsy to do a copper staining to find out if it is copper hepatopathy.

At this point, her prognosis is very worrisome. We are hoping to understand what is going on so we know better what our next steps are. But if she truly has liver failure, we may be buying time. We have sunk money into this so far, but she needs more than we have.

Even if all you can offer are prayers or good vibes, we would be grateful. Thank you for listening.

UPDATE: the vet reported last night that Montgomery has been given some medications and started antibiotics for the inflammation in her abdomen to hopefully reduce the swelling and drain the fluid. If we can get the fluid out, we can move on to diagnostics and treatment. She was eating (yay!) and giving the other dogs there a piece of her mind (normal), and the staff remarked on how sweet she is (she’s a melty baby, so of course we knew that!).

Being frank here: her odds are not good. If her liver is in failure, we may be delaying the inevitable. We are praying for a miracle. Praying that the swelling goes down so we can start treatment. Praying that her liver is NOT so far gone that we can’t take measures to protect it in the future. Praying that she can continue to be the stubborn little fighter she has always been and do her part to heal.

I’ll be getting a breakdown of costs for what we need to do next a little later, and I’ll share those here for transparency.

Finally, I want to say how blown away I am by your generosity. I know these are really difficult times, but this will give us a fighting chance to help save Monty. Your prayers and good thoughts mean more than you know. Thank you, from both of Monty’s humans and her sister Watson.