Hmmmm. On the contrary, my understanding from talking regularly to the leading experts on SM in cavaliers is that the earlier surgery can be performed, the better the outcome, and that a dog under one is a much BETTER candidate than older dogs precisely because it is still maturing and hence can bounce back faster, just as children tend to cope better with many surgeries than older people and heal faster. I have *never* heard that waiting is a better choice or that a growing cavalier is more likely to reform scar tissue. If anything a severely affected young dog is more likely to acquire significant damage during that waiting period that can never be corrected after surgery and may not even make it to the one year point. Cathy's Charlie is an example of a dog that was diagnosed at about 5 months and by the time he was 12 months he was having severe pain episodes despite medication and by the time he had his surgery, last week, had significant damage. We are all hoping he will get some reversal of some of his severe symptoms but if he had been done at 5 or 7 months his prognosis almost surely would have been hugely improved and he'd not have all the problems he now has.
He was a rescue dog and the rescue people opted not to go ahead with surgery at the time. Cathy had the surgery within a week or two of adopting him.
I'd really, really recommend getting a second opinion from a neurologist very familiar with SM. Unfortunately there are few in California -- Dr Kortz is one and he sometimes is at UCD but I would consider at least speaking to Dr Harrington in Washington state, who has done many SM surgeries. I know the leading experts on this condition, such as Dr Rusbridge, Dr Dewey and Dr Marino, would
immediately get such a young dog into surgery as a high priority. Clare believes some of the very good results Dr arino and Dewey are getting with their surgery is because they are doing it on much younger dogs rather than dogs who have suffered with the symptoms and consequent increasing permanent damage. Children also get the decompression surgery regularly. Scar tissue forms in about 20% of all cases in adults as well as younger dogs and in all the existing research the youth of the dog has never been cited as a higher risk for scar tissue formation.
If nothing else I would abslutely insist your neuro talk to Dr Dewey or Marino or speak to them yourself, as they have done dozens of surgeries, many on quite young dogs.
Clare has done the surgery with good results on a 12 week old. Her paper looking at longer term results found no difference at all for outcomes between young and older dogs but she told me recently she does feel younger dogs probably will have better outcomes because the earlier they are done, the less damage.
Screaming sessions fall on to the severe end of the pain scale the neurologists agreed upon at the London CKCS SM conference last year, and thus I'd be moving very fast to do the surgery if surgery were at all being contemplated.