Liver & Gallbladder guides
Practical, veterinary-led guidance on Liver & Gallbladder, written by vets, free to read. View all guides
Liver Shunts (PSS): Surgery or Medical Management?
If you are reading this, you have probably just been told that your dog has a liver shunt, and you are trying to work out what on earth to do next. Perhaps your puppy has always been the small one, the slow grower, the...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Life After Shunt Surgery: What Recovery Really Looks Like
You have made the decision, or you are close to making it, and your dog is going to have shunt surgery. Now you want the honest version of what comes next. Not the leaflet, not the best-case story, but the realistic...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Hepatic Encephalopathy: The Staring, Circling and Seizures
Your dog stops mid-room and stares at nothing. He presses his head into the corner and stands there. He circles, or paces, or seems suddenly not to know where he is, or walks into furniture as though he cannot see....
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Copper and the Liver: The Dog-Food Copper Debate, Honestly
You have probably arrived here worried, and possibly a little angry. Somewhere in the last few days you have read that the copper in ordinary dog food is damaging dogs' livers, that it has been quietly rising for years,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Feeding the copper-restricted dog: the practical guide
Your dog has a diagnosis now. The biopsy came back, the word "copper" was in the report, and your vet has told you that diet is going to be part of how you manage this from here on. Which is reassuring in one way,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
The Copper-Storage Breeds: Bedlingtons, Labradors and the Rest
If you share your home with a Bedlington Terrier, a Labrador, a Dobermann, a West Highland White or a Dalmatian, and the words "copper" and "liver" have come up together, you want breed-specific facts, not general...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Too Much Copper in Dog Food? What the 2021-2025 Science Shows
If you have already read the headlines and the forum arguments, and what you actually want is the evidence itself, laid out in order, without a slogan attached, this is the piece for you. The question "has the copper in...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Chronic Hepatitis in Dogs: The Honest UK Picture
If a vet has just used the phrase "chronic hepatitis", or you have read the words "chronic active hepatitis" on a biopsy report and had to look up what they meant, you are probably somewhere between frightened and...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Which Breeds Get Chronic Hepatitis, and Why It Matters
If you own a Springer Spaniel, a Labrador, a Dobermann, a Cocker or a Bedlington Terrier, and someone has mentioned chronic hepatitis, or you have simply gone looking because a routine blood test flagged a liver value,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Gallbladder Mucocoele: The Senior-Dog Surprise on the Scan
Your older dog went in for an ultrasound, quite possibly for something else entirely, a lump, a routine senior check, a vague off-colour week, and the report has come back with a phrase you have never heard: gallbladder...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Mucocoele: Operate Now, or Watch and Wait?
Your dog has a gallbladder mucocoele, it was found by chance, and your dog seems completely well. Now you are being asked to decide something that feels impossible: do you put a well dog through major abdominal surgery...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Cushing's, Thyroid Disease and the Gallbladder Link
Your dog has Cushing's disease, or an underactive thyroid, and now a scan has found a gallbladder mucocoele, and you are wondering whether the two are connected. Or perhaps it is the other way around: a mucocoele turned...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Your Cat Has Stopped Eating: A Liver Emergency (Hepatic Lipidosis)
If your cat has barely touched their food for the last couple of days, and you have landed here at some anxious hour trying to work out whether it can wait until morning, let me give you the honest answer straight away,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Feeding Tubes for Fatty Liver: The 6-7 Weeks That Save Cats
Your cat has been diagnosed with hepatic lipidosis, fatty liver, and somewhere in the conversation your vet said the words "feeding tube". If your stomach dropped a little at that, you are in good company. Almost every...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Your Dog's Liver Enzymes Are High: What It Actually Means
It's late, your dog is asleep on the sofa looking completely normal, and you're staring at a blood result with a number highlighted in red or marked with an asterisk. Maybe the vet mentioned it in passing at the end of...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Hepatic diets: Royal Canin Hepatic vs Hill's l/d, honestly
Your vet has handed you a bag of prescription food with "Hepatic" or "l/d" on the label, quoted you a price that made you blink, and told you it's for your pet's liver. You've come home, looked at the ingredients, and...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Denamarin, SAMe, silybin and milk thistle: what the evidence says
Someone has recommended a liver supplement for your pet. Maybe it was your vet, maybe the pet shop, maybe a well-meaning post in a Facebook group. The name was probably Denamarin, or perhaps just "SAMe" or "milk...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
The Bile Acids Test, Explained
So your vet has recommended a "bile acid stimulation test", and you've said yes without entirely understanding what you agreed to. There's a fasting sample, then a meal, then a second sample a couple of hours later, and...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Tracking liver values over time (and why the trend beats the number)
Most of the fear in liver disease lives in a single number. The vet says "the ALT is up again" or "the ALP has come down a bit", you catch one figure on a printout, and your whole week hinges on whether it sounds high....
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
When to worry again: the liver red flags
When your pet has a liver or gallbladder condition that's been stable for a while, life settles into a rhythm: the medication, the diet, the rechecks. And then, quietly, a new worry moves in behind the calm. How will...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
From a Blood Test to a Biopsy: The Liver Workup, Step by Step
Once a raised liver value refuses to go away, the conversation shifts from "what does this number mean?" to "what's the next test?" And that's a harder place to sit, because each step sounds a little bigger than the...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Jaundice in Cats: What the Yellow Actually Means
You have noticed something yellow. Maybe it was the gums when your cat yawned, or the whites of the eyes catching the light, or a faint tinge to the skin inside the ears. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it, and you...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
High Liver Values in Cats: Why It's a Different Conversation
You've done the sensible thing. Your cat's blood test flagged a liver value, you went looking for answers, and you found a lot of pages, almost all of them written about dogs. So now you're trying to translate advice...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
High Liver Enzymes But My Pet Seems Fine: Do I Panic?
This is one of the most unsettling situations in the whole of pet ownership, and it's oddly specific. Your dog or cat is bright, eating, playing, completely themselves, and yet a blood test has come back with a liver...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
ALT, ALP, AST and GGT in Plain English
You've got the printout in front of you, and it's a wall of three-letter abbreviations with numbers beside them, some flagged, some not. Somewhere in there are the "liver enzymes" your vet mentioned, and you'd quite...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
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