Help Rudy get his treatment and surgery

Rudy is a 4 year old hound dog and he is in need of further testing and eventually surgery due to his medical condition(s).

Rudy is such a special dog. He is our family member. We love him so much and want to help him with his treatment so he can live a long healthy life.

Background:

Rudy started peeing in our home last mid year which was not normal for him and developed extreme thirst. He also lost some weight. One other symptom has also been urinary incontinence while he sleeps. Occasionally he will pee while he is sleeping and totally unaware. The high calcium can cause this.

We ended up taking him to the vet and he received a full panel blood test, various ultrasounds of his neck and stomach, X-rays, and more. He had high calcium levels. Various diagnoses were ruled out including Cushing disease, Addisons disease, and stomach/chest tumors.

Rudy has continued to be investigated and his case has been a bit challenging and non-typical.

The clinic thinks he may have hyper parathyroid syndrome due to high calcium levels which have been consistent. As of today, I found out he also now has low phosphorus which is likely from the high calcium. He is now on a specific diet to help prevent stones while we work on his diagnostics which can occur in dogs with high calcium for prolonged periods. His ultrasounds has shown he has a potential small nodule on his parathyroid but its so small and has not grown for some time which was surprising. The clinic re-tested his PHT levels and they went down from 2.8 last summer to 1.8 as of December 2024. They expected the levels to increase due to his high calcium, which was a surprise.

They have proposed that Rudy have a full body CT scan to rule out cancerous tumors all over his body and a bone marrow test prior to doing a exploratory surgery of his parathyroid which is very close to his jugular vein. For hyper parathyroid issues, the only treatment is to remove the parathyroid. There is no management of the condition like medications. If it’s something else like a tumor, that would involve removal.

We were quoted 8-10k for these tests. After this testing, he will need surgery which will be very costly as well. If it’s the parathyroid, we will need to take him to Mississauga where he will need to remain in ICU for 3 days after the surgery.

We have already spent over $5000 this year on his diagnostic investigations and the financial burden has become difficult. It is our biggest regret not getting dog insurance.

I will continue to post updates on here as we receive new information. I can add the vet quote as well for the testing as proof once I figure out how.

If you care about animals and want to support Rudy, feel free to make a donation. Any donation would be helpful and we would appreciate it so much.

He is such a special dog and deserves a long healthy life. We want to do our best to give him the treatment he needs.

Although I don’t expect it, if there are any funds left over after his treatment, we will donate the remainder to an animal charity. I suspect the testing and surgery will well exceed 20,000. Thank you for reading.

Shannon and Matthew