Meet little Willow the newest member of our rescue at Golden Retriever Rescue Resource, GRRR.  Her birthday is 4/28/2020 and at the age of 4 months should weigh a little under 30 pounds.  Lil' Willow weighs in at just 15 pounds!  This is because she is a portosystemic shunt dog.

A portosystemic shunt (PSS) is an abnormal vessel that allows blood from the animal’s intestine to bypass the liver. As a result, toxins, proteins, hormones and nutrients absorbed by the intestines also bypass the liver, circulating throughout the body, and results in further deterioration of liver function. As a result of this congenital problem she has not been able to grow at the rate she should be growing.

We met with a surgeon so we could get Willow the help she needs to get back on track with her development. We will be seeing and internal medicine vet that will do a CT scan with angiogram in early October to find out if it is a portosystemic shunt problem. The way the doctor said the portosystemic shunts are handled most of the time is by placing a coil in the shunt and this will then cause a blockage to gradually form in the shunt closing it off so blood can start going into the liver for cleaning of toxins, etc.

We do not know until she sees the internal medicine vet if they are able to do the coil procedure or not. The doctor indicated that placing the coil is like placing a stent in a person, o will be minimally invasive with a quick recovery for the dog. She said on occasion a dog still has to have surgery rather then the coil procedure. Won't know which is recommended until the CT/angiogram. The coil procedure is much more expensive than doing surgery. We will update Willow's information after she's had her consult and we know a game plan for her surgery.

We know we'll need your financial help to cover the medical needs for Willow. The CT/angiogram is going to cost anywhere from $2,100 to $2,500. Once we find out if the diagnosis is correct, then we will discover how much is needed to be raised for the coil procedure. If you can donate in her name below, we would greatly appreciate your help. We cannot do it without you.

We are not taking applications for adoption just yet. We'll get a game plan in place and let you know the results soon. In the meantime, if you would like to adopt any of our dogs, the first step to be considered is to review the adoption process by reading our adoption policies and if you qualify for adoption, follow the directions from there.