Seizures?

Have you ever had a dog that has had seizures?

I am dog-sitting for a friend right now, and yesterday, I am about 90% positive that her dog (Lucy) had a seizure. Luckily, my friend's husband was around. He decided not to take her to the vet, but I am instructed to take her if it happens again.

What happened? Basically, Lucy was on the couch. She sat up shaking with her back hunched crookedly upward in the air. (It was not a normal position for her spine.) She was swaying from side to side, drooling excessively, and staring at nothing. Lucy tried to step down from the couch, but she was disorientated. She fell, tried to walk again, and fell once more drooling ridiculous amounts all the while. Her steps were labored, sideways, and chaotic, and her tail was tucked between her legs. It was unlike anything I had ever seen with my dogs. I called my friend's husband and held her for awhile while she shook and drooled a large puddle in the floor. When I position her face to look at me, her eyes wouldn't meet mine but seemed to swim in her head. After about 5 to 10 minutes, the shaking stopped, and soon after, she was completely back to normal. By the time the husband arrived back at the house, she was walking around and seemed perfectly happy to see him.

It was absolutely bizarre. The husband's mother is a vet technician and said it sounded like a seizure more than anything. What do you think?

 

Shepherd, I have owned a dog that had seizures and I take care of dog that has seizures. From your description, it sounds like a seizure.

My dog used to shake and drool when she had one. She's lay down and we'd calm her as best we could until it was over. Back in the 1970s, there was no treatment for a dog with seizures.

My sister's dog was at my house when she had her first one. It was about 4 years ago. I remember she was sitting on my bed at bedtime. Suddenly, she was staring. It was a strange stare like she was no longer present in the room. She drooled a little. Then, it was over. It was odd, but didn't really seem to be anything serious.

About 3 months later she a small seizure at home. Then, they started to come in clusters. These were full out seizures when she'd lay on her side, shake, drool, and stare. Most of the seizures were not as long as the one you mentioned. However, the dog I had as a child would have them for 5 minutes or so.

It appears that something was going wrong for awhile with my sister's dog. The dog always had this skittish frenetic energy. Once she got on medication, the seizures were under control and her personality came back down to earth.

There are other reasons they might behave like this. I know of a dog who ate snail bait and reacted the same way. They rushed her to the vet and they were able to treat her. But, my guess is since the problem abated and there was no lingering affects that it was a seizure and not something caused by ingestion.

It is a strange and scary thing to sit through, isn't it?

 

Very scary and truly strange! Thank you for sharing your story with me though. So the treatment for a dog these days with seizures is just medication?

We checked around the house after it happened to see if there was anything that she could have possible gotten into, but we found nothing. The husband I mentioned in my initial post asked the neighbors if they had sprayed any weed killer or anything of that nature, and they said they hadn't.

 

None of my dogs have had seizures, but my sister has a dog that does. Diamond, her Pit, would just fall to the floor and go into seizures. Not all the time, just occasionally. It even has the vet confused, he can't seem to find a reason why. Diamond is diagnosed with unexplained seizures brought on by nerves or perhaps some sort of allergy that appears from time to time. They have had her tested for allergies, with none found. So when Diamond has a seizure they just have to watch, and make sure she doesn't get hurt until it passes. Once it's over within a few minutes, Diamond acts as though nothing has happened.

 

That's really scary. Hopefully it was just a one time thing that has passed and won't happen again. I've never had any of my dogs have seizures like that before, but my cat had. I still don't know what caused that either.

 

Did your cat exhibit the same symptoms and reaction as what I mentioned in my initial post? Or was it entirely different?

 

Yes, but minus the tucking of her tail, but I'm sure that's a distinction of the animals and not something differentiating the rest of the symptoms. It was really scary.

 

My dog Sherlock, has idiopathic epilepsy. We first noticed there was a problem, when he started airsnapping/flysnapping in his sleep. He would also twitch like crazy when sleeping, but not in that way dogs do when they're dreaming; it was definitely more like a seizure. He would eventually come out of it, but he woke with a very glazed expression, looking like he didn't know where he was. At that point, he was also grumbling and barking at things that simply weren't there, and doing some very odd 'tap dancing', which was where one of his hind legs would tap constantly. It was involuntary, and he'd sometimes fall over.

When we got a referral to a neurologist, he was put through an MRI, he had a spinal tap, and a whole bunch of other tests. He was also displaying some very odd OCD behaviour. His MRI showed that his brain was shrunken, squashed on one side, and sitting oddly. The diagnosis was congenital brain damage, with idiopathic epilepsy. He now has Epiphen 60mg, twice daily, once every twelve hours.

He has a good and full life, he is loved, and we deal with his issues how we can.