I am trying to get info for someone with a pet pup diagnosed with this. I have urged her to contact her breeder as well.

Has anyone dealt with this - elevated feedings - food fed dry to prevent aspiration?

What is the quality of life - how difficult is this to deal with?

How does the dog drink water - normaly or elevated?

If you have raised a pup with this condition how long did it live?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this person is in tears with this very recent diagnosis as she loves this pup to death.

Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

Patty,
I found this that might be very helpful as they begin to deal with the issues. Hope it helps! Good Luck to them. http://www.caninemegaesophagus.org/index.html

Thank you Susan. Thats a great site. I will pass it on.

I had purchased a pup with this. Didnt know what it was at the time. She was a year old when we finally figured it out. She was very thin and we decided that her quality of life would not be very good as she was getting worse. We decided to have her "put to sleep" Recently we bred a new stud to a girl we never bred and had 2 Mega pups which we had to "put to sleep".In the mean time we had already bred him to another girl. One that we knew never threw this in previous litters and we also have both her parents. We watched very closely as we introduced solid food and sure enough there was a Mega pup( we had it diagnosed by a barium xray). We are neutering him to stop anymore and have contacted both the Dam and Sire owner to let them know. But its very hard to keep a Mega dog and have a quality life. Sorry....

I had a litter in the winter of 2002, and there were 3 pups who had problems of this type. One was put down, and another eventually was put down after surgery to correct the problem did not help. I think if we had had the surgery to correct the problem early, then things may have been different. However, we tried so many other things before we did the surgery and the nerve endings in the esophagus were so bad, that the surgery didn't help. The 3rd pup is still alive and doing well. They feed him elevated. So, there can be a positive outcome. I wish your friend good luck.

Are you sure its Mega and not PRAA (persistent right aortic arch)? They both have similar symptoms and the PRAA harder to diagnose. I had the latter I had it in an 8 week old puppy 4 years ago....He had a $1500. surgery to remove the ligament that was pulling the esohagus and had to eat and drink upright and high for several months. Yes, he also had to eat moist food and heard he is still doing alright and happy now???? Leeda

Leeda, good to hear from you. And thanks to you and the rest of you for your posts.

I will pass this info on Leeda so they can check with their vet or better yet, a specialist.

And also pass on the info about the surviving pup from the litter of 3 afflicted.

This is scary and sounds to me like a hereditary issue thru possible recessive genes? I have hear this about Great Danes and litters produced.

Please keep coming with any info you all have. Much appreciated.

I spoke with this littel black boy's (Diesel) mom on the phone tonight and could hear her hugging and kissing this baby. Tough to hold back the tears.

She is not giving up yet.

She has spoken with her breeder who has never heard of or dealt with megaesophogus and breeder is contacting her vet.

Ownder did tell me her vet has dealt with a few cases.

I will keep you posted.

Please pray to St. Francis (the keeper of the animals) for little Diesel.

I had never dealt with mega before, and never again. I still have a suspicion that in my case, it was not inherited. I live in the country and there are fields across from where I live that have crops. A crop duster use to fly over our house and then spray the chemicals on the field. I suspect that they dropped
chemicals early, and my dog got into them. I did rebreedings after that and never had another problem with the pups. Have your friend see a specialist as soon as possible. I think in the case with the pup who had surgery, we would have had a better outcome if we had done the surgery sooner.

Just an update that the owner of this pup and her husband have made the very difficult decision to return this pup to the breeder as they don't feel they are equipped to handle this condition.

Prayers that Diesel will be one of the success stories.