Gus Gus is our newest family member. We adopted him from the wonderful organization A Stone’s Throw Rescue. He stole our hearts quickly with his absolutely loving, goofy, and wonderful personality. He blended perfectly with our other two dogs and quickly made himself at home.

However, shortly after getting him home, I began to question if things were okay or if I was just being paranoid given my career.

We began to only catch glimpses of the happy, healthy puppy we assumed he was. At different periods of time, I questioned if he was able to see until one day he became acutely lethargic, non-visual, and neurological. He was wobbling, head pressing into corners, and walking into walls.

I brought him into the hospital to quickly learn not only does he have an intra-hepatic shunt but also one of the largest they’ve ever seen.

The liver is responsible for many jobs, one of which is filtering your food. A shunt essentially causes this process to bypass the liver, skipping filtration and moving everything directly into the bloodstream.

Every time he eats, his body reaches dangerous ammonia levels, which is a byproduct of protein and can cause neurological dysfunction, which explains his acute episodes.

Despite the severity of his situation, we were given the option to attempt to manage his case with medication.

Unfortunately, that became a greater risk 3 nights ago when he had his first GI bleed.

GI bleeds pose a major risk to dogs with shunt and are one of the leading causes of death.

We are now looking to pursue the very complicated and in-depth procedure of installing coils in order to attempt to correct this shunt and offer him the best chance at survival and living a semi-normal, semi-longer life.

I was originally told to hope for 2 years with him, and after his recent episode, that estimate has dropped drastically if we don’t pursue this procedure.

Apart from my own selfish wants to have longer with him, he simply deserves longer; he deserves better.

Surgery is estimated to be around $10,000 and I’m hoping to raise even just a portion of that. 

Please help us if you can.

I cannot express my gratitude enough, no matter the size of the donation or even if it is simply sharing this post for others to find.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.