Does anybody know about dogs and seizures???

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Pookinaround

FUZZ BUTT ENTHUSIAST
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Has anyone ever had a dog that took seizures??? What happens to them when they take one??? I have never had a dog that did so I don't know what the signs are but I suspect that my dog Bentley might have had one. He is ok now but was acting really weird this morning...I found him laying on the floor sprawled out, panting pretty heavily and I had to coax him to get up and for a while he seemed almost "drunk" and was stumbling a bit...if I take him to the vet are they going to be able to tell anything since he seems ok now??? I am worried so any advice/info would be appreciated...THX!
 
There are several different ways seizures can appear. Sometimes they can act very confused, disoriented, and stare off into space... and then sometimes they are violent body movements. Sometimes they can be seizing and you can't even notice. It sounds like it could have either been a stroke or a seizure, but there's no way to know for sure without testing and medical attention. You need to take him to a vet for blood tests and a neurological exam. Tell the vet what time you found him like that, how long it lasted, what he was doing before/after, and I'm sure they will ask you many other questions.
 
I wouldn't say I know anything about seizures but we did have a pug that had two or three seizures. Gizmo was a good dog. He got disorientated and fell to his side and twitched. But since it was only a couple times the vet didn't feel he was bad enough to be medicated.
 
My border collie has seizures. She is 11 now and has had them since she was around 5. She's had blood work and MRI's and nothing was found, so hers may just be hereditary. We got her from the pound, so who knows.

When they first started, I went online and read that they could be related to junk in most dog foods, so I switched her to a high quality food and the seizures went from twice a month to maybe twice a year. She will usually have them within two weeks of having her annual vaccinations - and she has no tolerance for oral or topical flea/tick or heartworm medications. She was having up to three a week the last time I tried flea/tick meds. She can't even tolerate anything topical applied to our other dog.

Her seizures are pretty light. She doesn't lose consciousness and doesn't lose bowel or bladder control. For that reason, we have never medicated her for them.

She knows when she is about to have one and if we are nearby she will come to me or my husband. Otherwise, she will run and get under the bed. She gets very shaky, and then her muscles stiffen up. Her legs stretch out and her eyes bulge. She is very weak afterward, and it takes a good 5 or 10 minutes before she can even stand up. Even then she is very weak and stumbles around. I found online a tip about applying an ice pack to their back (low back to hip area) during the seizure to bring their body temperature down. We do that and it seems to help the seizure to be shorter, less intense and she recovers a lot quicker.

She was recently diagnosed with cancer, and has an esophageal stricture from the surgery to remove her tumor. Since we've had to change her diet her seizures are more frequent again, but still just light seizures.

Diet is the first thing I would look at before deciding to put a dog on seizure meds. My aunt's dog has seizures and rather than try a better food, she keeps him on crap food and medicates him.
 
My mother's poodle had them from the time he was one year of age till he passed due to heart failure at the age of fifteen. His were violent affairs and we perfected the "burrito" swaddling for him. Once the vet prescribed meds for him, his seizures were a once a month to every three months deal, instead of several times a week (at their worst.)

I would say get you pup to the vet to rule out other problems.
 
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