What is a Liver Shunt?
In a normal mammal such as the dog, the liver has the job of processing nutrients taken up from the intestine. A big part of its work is processing and detoxifying proteins that in their original form can damage the central nervous system, rendering them harmless and able to be utilized by the body to build its own tissue. A liver shunt is simply a vein (or sometimes several veins) that effectively bypass the liver and deliver these toxins straight into the bloodstream unprocessed. health miniature problem schnauzer So, What Causes It? In the normal mammal embryo the liver is not mature enough to take on the job of detoxifying nutrients this work is done by the liver of its mother. Near birth these embryonic blood vessels normally shut down to allow the adult veins from the intestines to the liver to take over. However, in some puppies they fail to shut down, and the puppy is born with a congenital liver shunt. The vein(s) that make up the liver shunt in dogs can be either buried insid
