Update on the Pooch

Stanley in the hospital - poor puppy

Thanks to everyone who has asked about Stanley. Most of you know he's my first child and I probably treat him like more of a baby than a dog, so when he got sick unexpectedly, it threw me for a bit of a loop.

On Friday, I took him to the emergency vet because he couldn't control his bladder and had blood in his urine. Turns out he had a urinary infection, but in the course of discovery we found another problem. He had elevated counts in his liver (his ALT was 770 and it is supposed to be around 100) which could mean any number of things: primary liver disease, toxicity (from eating something), cancer, etc. He was hospitalized for evaluation and given a slew of drugs and an IV to try to cleanse his liver. After about 15 hours he was feeling better and they sent him home with the drugs. He rested and seemed to be doing better.

We took him to his regular vet yesterday where she examined him and rechecked his liver levels, they were better (318) which means he is not getting sicker (and doesn't need to be re-hospitalized), but they are still 3 times what they should be. She thinks that this indicates that we might be looking at an acute condition rather than a chronic condition. We are waiting on the results of other tests (that can take up to a week to get the results). So the net of it is, he is doing better, but we still have a lot of uncertainty around what's wrong with him. We will continue to monitor him and if he appears to be going down hill again, we will have to take him in for an ultrasound of his liver. Please keep Stanley in your thoughts and prayers.