Replied by Simmer Dougherty (Pennsylvania) on 07/06/2015
Christine, I am so sorry about your little dog. I rescued a tiny 3 legged chihuahua. Two weeks later he was diagnosed with liver shunt after seizures. He was put on a canned prescription liver diet and supposedly needed surgery or he would die. His vet bills were outrageous and there was no guarantee the 10,000 surgery would be successful .By chance, I spoke with a chihuahua breeder that advised me to take him off the liver diet and make him homemade food.
I used the diet from the University of Tennessee's veterinary school suggested liver shunt diet.
http://www.vet.utk.edu/clinical/sacs/shunt/pdf/2012-Nov-GenericLiverShuntDiet.pdf
I noticed an a difference within one week of changing his diet. I was eventually able to wean him off his seizure meds. By the age of 6 months his liver had grown large enough that his shunt was no longer a problem. He's 2 1/2 now and eats a normal home made dog diet.
Here's the diet I have all of my dogs on now. http://www.theittybittyfarm.com/2015/01/homemade-dog-food-for-health-and-love.html
His liver studies have returned to almost normal.He has not had a seizure in 22 months. I wish you the best of luck.
Here's a website that has lots of liver shunt information
http://www.vet.utk.edu/clinical/sacs/shunt/faq.ph
