06/02/2026
June is mega esophagus awareness month. As you know, we have two dogs here at WeBeBoarding that have been diagnosed with megaesophagus. BaeLee is congenital idiopathic, which means she was diagnosed at birth, Dolly is acquired megaesophagus. My good friend Michelle posted this this morning and I thought that she said everything I wanted to say so I’m going to share what she wrote with you. WeBeBoarding also fostered a pup from Oak Grove Veterinary Hospital her name was MEGAN she was a purebred miniature dachshund who was diagnosed with megaesophagus. We brought Megan here and then the wonderful team from Freedom Run Express transported her to Connecticut to Perfect Imperfections rescue. A dear friend of ours donated $10,000 for Megan‘s surgery once we found out that she had PRAA the surgery was done in Connecticut. Megan is now living the life of a normal healthy dog. I want to thank everyone that is recently donating to Dolly’s fundraiser. She is doing well after her bout of aspiration and then acquiring aspiration pneumonia, she is resting. She is healing. She is on some very powerful and expensive antibiotics as is BaeLee. I would also like to think StoryBook rescues for helping me buy the medication at discounted prices. It takes a village and that’s what we are out here. I love everybody that we work with. I also want to give a shout out to Tammy Swanson for being here and helping us at WeBeBoarding. She is training dogs, she is babysitting dogs, she is cleaning kennels and she has recently been added to the Transport team of Freedom Run Express. We are very blessed and lucky to have her.
June is Megaesophagus Awareness Month...There are two main types of Megaesophagus, congenital or acquired.
Congenital is present at birth. It can be congenital idiopathic, which means they're born with it, but there is no known cause. Data had congenital idiopathic Megaesophagus.
It can also be congenital, caused by PRAA; Persistent Right Aortic Arch...A vascular ring anomaly that typically dissolves at birth, but in these pets it doesn't and strangles the esophagus as they grow. I've even seen a few cases of double PRAA.
Surgery can help to improve, possibly resolve PRAA, but it doesn't work for everyone. And surgery can be expensive. I've seen it range from $2500-$25,000, depending on location and such variables.
One of the most frustrating things about Megaesophagus is that every case is different. There is no one size fits all, even in littermates. You could never write a manual because there are so many variables, too many to cover it all.
A barium swallow study is the gold standard for diagnosis, but some, like Data, are just diagnosed via x-ray.
