[Julia Howard]

Shellie,
I have gone the route of the AAI with one of my little boys and my vet treated him for a week with meds and confinement and insisted it was a back injury although x-rays didnt show anything. After one week of his screaming and not getting any better I literally pitched a fit with him to get me an appointment with Auburn Vet School. He resisted sending us due to the expense and he really thought he knew what was going on but he was not living with Kole and seeing the pain and agony that we were going through. He had even sent him home with an IV and we transported him to Auburn with an IV. They did an MRI and immediately knew what the problem was but by that time the brain stem was shutting down his organs and they told us it was too late. They could have done surgery that has a good success rate (even though it is a serious surgery) and implanted screws to hold the
vertebra together if we had gotten him there in time. We were too late for him and a lot of the fault lies with my vet. This is a large vet clinic who sees thousands of dogs but had never seen an AAI. So, you really need to be in a place where this type of problem is seen and treated. My vet did not know the outcome of Kole's visit for several months because I was so angry. The hospital eventually sent him Kole's chart and in turn he donated money to establish a fund for this condition in Kole's memory. That was great but too late for Kole. I tell you this because of personal experience and loosing my little one and having my heart torn out. I also have a friend who had chiari in her yorkie and was sent to Auburn Teaching Hospital for diagnoses. She had the surgery and is alive and doing good eight years later. Even in some of the larger vet clinics they just dont see these conditions. At Auburn the first thing they do is an MRI because they arent available in most clinics. My experience is that the MRI was all that was required to diagnos the problems.
I have two with hydrocephalus and both were diagnosed there. Please get Cassie to a specialist for your sake and hers. Sorry this is so long but time is extremely important in a lot of cases.