...not the edible kind...

I am hoping that someone on this board might have experienced this sort of thing before, because I'm stumped.

I had my girl (she's an 8 year old border collie) in to my vet to get some lumps inspected. As I suspected they are just little lipomas so we made a date to have them excised. Because of her age the vet suggested we do prelim bloodwork before her general anaesthetic. I didn't really want to but agreed- after all, he's the vet- and as it turns out it's a good thing I did.

Everything came back normaler than normal except for Barra's liver enzyme count, which was waaaay high. Because she is a) not the sort of dog to get into garbage; b) in such good shape; and c) totally asymptomatic the vet thinks it is maybe the result of inflammation due to some sort of trauma (hit in the gut, landed wrong after jumping, etc.) I would very much like to believe it's that simple but of course the first thing I do is start to panic (ultrasounds, biopsies, etc, $$$- not to mention the possibility of actually losing my dog!!!)

My question to all is this- has anyone experienced this sort of thing before? I suppose it would be not unrealistic to think that injuries could happen at any time but particularly to a working dog that loves to play hard at home (wrestle, tug of war, etc.) She is on meds for 10 days to bring down any inflammation and then we will recheck. In the meantime any advice would be most appreciated.

I have recently on a dog that's fed raw. Vet put him back on dog food, wk later numbers were fine.

Which liver values where high (ALT, biliruben, AST)? Some assays are not liver specific and each one tells us something different . Also how old is your dog. Elder dogs tend to have higher liver assays just with old age, however younger dogs with high assays should be suspected of shunts. False elavations can be common depending on the age and "wellness" of the machine. Blood assay machines are soooo testy and it they are not calibrated at least weekly they become grumpy. Proper handling of the sample is also extremely important.

Hi Emily,

How embarassing- I can't remember if it was ALT or AST. I'm pretty sure it was ALT though. She is 8 ys old, fed kibble all her life (supplemented with MSM and DMG,) seems to be in very good health & totally without symptoms as I've said. That's why this is so confusing.

I've put any real exercise on hold for the time being (so I get the infamous border collie "stare" every 20 minutes or so) just in case further physical stress might affect things. Milk thistle and vitamins have also been suggested so I guess there is not much to do but continue with the meds and see what happens in 10 days *shrugs* Thanks for your input!