This testimonial is extremely overdue, but I'm happy to submit today. Puptection helped give back the gift of life to our Carmel. Back in October 2014, we bought a golden retriever-Carmel. From the start, the breeder told us she was the smallest she had ever seen. She was a normal playful, lovable, and a complete blessing. We were having a hard time potty training her, but brushed that off to just her being a stubborn puppy. One week when she was about 8 months old Carmel started to become less like her puppy self, she didn't talk (bark) as much and seemed to have less energy than normal. On a Friday night, into early Saturday morning that's when everything took an unexpected turn - Carmel's gums were hot and she was just restless. Throughout the night, we kept watching her and she started to drool. When we realized she couldn't stand without swaying, we raced her to the ER where they told us at first it was something toxic that got into her system. They administered fluids and other meds to help with what they thought was going on and came out and told us that her condition was getting better and that whatever was causing this was going away. The vet told us that we could go home and that they would look after her. We drove home thinking everything was going to be O.K. and that she was in good hands (so we thought). No more than a half hour later we got a call from the new shift vet stating that Carmel was banging her head, walking in circles, and was blind. We raced to the E.R. and they stated that it could be meningitis, but they didn't have a neurologist on site to diagnosis her.
We ended up taking Carmel to another ER in Chicago that had a neurologist on staff that could perform a spinal tap that would tell us if she had meningitis or not. The vet sedated her and proceeded with the tests which included taking more blood samples, it was during the blood samples that one of the doctors found that Carmel's liver enzymes were over 500 when the normal range is 10-120. We had a spinal tap done to rule out meningitis and the vet advised us to have an ultrasound performed on her liver with her regular vet to find out if there were any shunts. Carmel's regular vet Dr. Makofski (Beach Park Animal Hospital) wanted us to get a second opinion as she couldnt see a definite shunt.
We took her to the Vet. Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove- the ultrasound concluded no external shunts so the next step was an MRI. If the MRI concluded it was internal shunts, surgery can correct it, but it's an extremely risky. On the day of the MRI, the vet in Buffalo Grove called while Carmel was under anesthesia and determined that she does have liver shunts, but they can't be surgically fixed. The doctor told us that we should keep giving her a protein free diet, continue her lactulose (which helps break the protein down for the liver), and that we would maybe have a year until she passed. We even asked what about a special diet? Their response was "it's a lot of work and you won't get results as expected". We couldn't believe what we heard and were in denial. We instantly started our Internet search of dog nutritionists and that's when we were called to Puptection. Alex answered the phone and spent over an hour with us, listening to us, encouraging us. Our faith was shattered from the vet in Buffalo Grove, but Alex was determined to build it back up. He suggested the V-Flow diet to detox from all the anesthesia she was given and all meds. He also suggested to get her on the Original Dehydrated Formula (which contains no meat) and stated we need to feed Carmel the real protein as the low-protein diets are nothing but the bad meats that can make our beloved pets feel worse. He stated to use real chicken in diet.
We were so scared- here the vets in Buffalo Grove were telling us LOW-PROTEIN, but Alex was saying feed her the real deal?! We immediately called her regular vet and gave her the news, she encouraged us to try it and agreed with Alex. After 2 weeks of feeding Carmel her new diet-Original Dehydrated Formula & V-Flow with small amounts of cooked chicken, the vet took her blood and her levels dropped to the normal range of 75! The doctor was even in disbelief that she ran it twice! We called Puptection back right away and shared the good news! We haven't looked back since. On our last trip about 1 month ago, still being on the specialized Puptection diet, Carmel's levels are still within normal range! Today Carmel is still alive and loving her puppy life, doing puppy things and all of this is because of Puptection and her vet's encouragement to follow the holistic diet from the start. I don't even want to think of where we would be if we listened to the Buffalo Grove vets and never found Puptection. For any disbelievers given grim news of their beloved pet call Puptection for a second opinion and see if they have anything to rebuild your pet's health and strength-they truly saved our Carmel!
