[dianethomas]

I was sent a PM asking if we plan on surgically repairing Zacchie's mouth. I wanted to paste the answer here, in case anyone else was wondering.

Originally, our plan, (Zacchie's vet and mine) was to wait until he was three to six months to attempt surgery. At this time, we are taking a wait and see approach. I have done some research and learned that surgery on the soft pallate is quite successful, but when it involves the hard pallate, the success rate is lower. Zaccheus' cleft is from right behind his teeth to his throat, which means it is a full mid-line cleft. One of the things my research turned up is that once they are on hard food and clean water, the dogs are perfectly healthy and can live long, normal lives with no surgery at all.
At the very least, we will wait until he is a year old, and completely grown so his mouth is fully developed. His hard pallate will continue to change until then, and we don't want to do the surgery and have it not succeed because we didn't wait until he was done growing.
His doctor, who is a very good friend from church, saw him last night, and was astonished at how much his cleft had widened. He is completely in agreement that we should wait until Zac is fully developed before we proceede with any surgery at all.

If anyone who has been through this situation has any advice on this topic, I am open to hearing it.