Lilliput, I'll continue my story since you want to hear it
My husband and I are college students, so we don't exactly have a lot of extra money, so I called a lady that I had met a month back that is very involved with rescue and I asked her what to do. She made a couple of calls and found a lady that was willing to donate the costs of the ultrasound and meds for one month...She also referred me to the most wonderful vet I have ever met! He has helped us all the way through and helped us financially by cutting many of the costs because he knows how much we love our baby and he has grown quite attached to him.
Anyway, Miko (our yorkie) was put on denosyl (a liver supplement), lactulose, and he eats Royal Canin Hepatic LS 14 veterinary diet (especially for dogs with liver shunts). He didn't have anymore seizures and he got back to his normal, happy, hyper self.
About two weeks later, I noticed that he was having trouble urinating. He would squat, but nothing would come out. This happened for about two hours, and I decided I needed to take him to the vet immediately.
The vet said that he had many bladder stones of significant size that were blocking his ability to urinate. They put him on a urinary catheter. It was awful to see all the stones coming through the catheter, they were all throughout his urine.
A few days later, the vet said that we could take him home that night and see what happens. We took him home, and he was able to urinate only once, and then he couldn't urinate anymore the whole night. He was miserable, so in the morning, we took him back to the vet. He spent almost a month at the vet's office without being able to get off of the urinary catheter. The vet said that as long as Miko has the liver shunt, the bladder stones would continue to form. So we set up a surgery day to remove the bladder stones that he had and to repair the liver shunt. The stones were removed, but the bad news is that the vet was not able to find the shunt! Apparently, it's an intrahepatic liver shunt and it's very difficult to work with the liver because too much poking and prodding around there can cause him to bleed to death.
So, with our consent the vet proposed that in order prevent the stones from continuing to block his ability to urinate, he could open him a new hole to urinate from at the base of his penis. This hole is about 1 inch long and will allow him to urinate without pain or discomfort from the stones and it will allow the stones to pass freely. We said fine. So, he did that surgery and Miko is completely fine! He doesn't urinate blood anymore and he's never in pain from the stones and his urine seems to be a normal color now.
The medication and special low protein diet (where the protein comes from soy and vegetables) keep him completely healthy. I've spoken to many vets and they all say that as long as Miko isn't having any symptoms he should be fine for many years (of course not as long as a completely healthy yorkie, but still at least 5-9 years). His attitude is very positive and he has had a very rough start in life (even when he was a pup he had coccidia and was hypoglycemic), but he has shown us that he WANTS to live. He's been a very strong boy!! Also, we are going to find a specialist that is very experienced in dealing with small dogs with intrahepatic shunts and try the surgery again a little bit later.
For now, you would never know that he has any problems with his liver. The vet said that he checked all his organs while he was in there and that everything looks good, even his liver. The liver will start to shrink when there is a shunt, but he said Miko's looks great right now!