<p>So I came home to a pile of dog poo on the living room rug. This never happens. My old dog is acting very agitated. I let him out in the yard. He paced and panted in circles. He also is acting like he doesn’t know me. I could only get him back in the house by catching him and carrying him back in. Now he is walking circles around the house up and down the stairs and panting. When I talk to him he acts like he doesn’t know who I am. He won’t lie down. I wonder if he had a stroke. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Call the vet.</p>
<p>or maybe a seizure. Call the emergenncy vet. I 'm sorrry this is happening . I thought we were losing our two old girls twice this last year but the vet was able to bring them around. I hope this is true for you.</p>
<p>vet immediately - something like that happened to our older dog several summers ago - it was a strange sort of bacterial infection. He was hospitalized for several days but ultimately pulled through. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks for responses. I googles some stuff and I think he is in pain. He settled for a while. I found som carprofen from his last arthritic episode and will sleep on couch w him and call vet in morning. The emergency vet here makes you wait for hours and he is afraid of them. Long night for all of us. I wish they could talk.</p>
<p>Switters,
Not to alarm you but my sister lost her dog very suddenly last month. Her dog was acting strangely and they decided to wait until morning to go to the vet. By the time they got up in the morning he was too far gone and died in the vet’s parking lot. If your dog has not improved since you posted you should bring him in even if it is a wait. At least he will be at the vet if he worsens. The painkillers may be masking a serious problem. Good luck. I’ll be thinking of you.</p>
<p>One of our dogs acted the same way and was diagnosed with seizures. He eventually settled down, but it was a very long night. We had pillows all around so he wouldn’t get wedged into corners. (His eyesight, already fading, went completely away with the seizure.) The poor old thing recovered, we gave him pills the vet prescribed, and kept him comfortable. He ended up having another seizure about 8 weeks later & went totally blind. Unfortunately, we had to have him put down at that point. He was close to 19 & had lived a long and happy life. </p>
<p>I felt the same way about the emergency vet. I wanted his normal vet to do the dx and treatment - the ER would have pushed MRIs and other tests - and the reg vet would do what was needed and right. (And he did.) I hope your pup recovers.</p>
<p>Been through that with a dog who had seizures. Sounds like it could be that. Hope the night isn’t too bad and you can get with your regular vet in the morning. Those hours waiting for the vet to open can be brutal. On a side note we have a pet store owner who is a great source of information on cc and lots of other professionals including lawyers and doctors but I can’t think of a vet. Can’t somebody out there recruit a vet to join parents cafe?</p>
<p>Also thinking of you and hoping your dog will be ok.
The emergency vet, is this in an emergency always open clinic? The procedure is usually that they take the urgent cases first, even if others are waiting. I’ve had to take one of my dogs on two occasions, one of which was life threatening, and they took him immediately into treatment.
Very best to you and your dog, I’m so sorry this is happening.</p>
<p>Hello everyone- EPTR I didnt see your response til now, probably would have rushed him out had I. Anyway. The night was long, he kept pacing, then sleeping for a while, then pacing some more. We went up to bed, he slept pretty well on his big dog bed, would wake up once in a while and pant and whine. When he slept, it was solid. This morning we went to the vet first thing, and of course he was fine. He looked me in the eye this morning, wagged his tail, but I took him in anyway. They couldnt find anything wrong with him, but did blood work. Seizures were not mentioned, but they asked a lot of those types of questions. So they sent us home with carprofen in case its arthritic pain. She will call me about the blood work on Monday. </p>
<p>What is it about going to the vet that makes all the symptoms go away. Our Corgi was literally paralyzed this summer, couldnt walk, was dragging his little back legs behind him. I rushed him to the vet, and as soon as he got there he started walking and wagging.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your concern.</p>
<p>Well, I’m actually glad you didn’t see my post 'til today as he made it through the night okay.
Sorry… my catastrophe meter has been in overdrive lately and it is making me a bit of an alarmist. I’m glad your dog is okay now and hopefully will continue to be.</p>
<p>I swear they get so anxious about going to the vet that they “fake” good health when they get there. God bless them. Hoping he continues to improve!</p>
<p>EPTR- no need to apologize. I was on the fence most of the night. This particular emergency vet is so over the top with tests and things, and so expensive. They were our regular vet until I got 3 dogs and a cat, and switched to a less upscale place for a number of reasons, including cost. So it would have been like zeebamom said, but my catastrophe meter is pretty high these days too, and its my kids dog, and he is away at college and its finals week, and there is nothing to heighten sense of catastrophe like lack of sleep. If he hadn’t at least laid down and slept the amount he did, I would have taken him. </p>
<p>The last time I dealt with this place was when my 21 year old cat was dying.She was the oldest cat ever, and looked it.) My husband took her in to have her put down, because we thought we were going to let her go at home, but when it got near the end, we lost heart and wanted to end it a little more quickly, or maybe we thought there was some fix, I cant quite remember now why he was at the vet on a sunday morning. I didnt go with him because of some stupid work related emergency. Im sorry now I didnt. But I was home when my husband called from the vet and said, well they want to run a couple tests, it will be $1500 dollars. I told him to put the vet on the phone, and talked her through the reasoning behind these tests, which I never quite to this day grasped. Basically I asked this nice young woman why she wanted to run tests on a 21 year old animal that clearly had days to live. She came to her senses.</p>
<p>This old cat was so old that they put her down for free, if we would donate her body to science for an autopsy. We did, and it turned out she died of cancer, kidney failure and heart disease. She was the meanest animal ever, but boy did we love her.</p>
<p>I’m glad you took your dog to the vet, switters. I wonder if he could have chowed down on something he shouldn’t have that affected him or if something bizarre happened outside the house which he saw/heard/felt while you were away and that completely freaked him out. This is when you wish they could tell you where it hurts.</p>
<p>^^^
That is a possibility. When my dog was a puppy she got into some mushrooms that were growing in the yard (we’re so good at yard work :)) and started acting very strange. Vomiting and diarrhea everywhere, trembling, too. </p>
<p>Another story, a friend of mines has a back lab who was acting like yours and she took it to the vet where they admitted her overnight. In the middle of the night the tech took her out to “go” and the dog eliminated a long, fully intact garbage bag. Not to be too graphic but the tech had to pull it out like Houdini pulling a scarf out of his sleeve. It kept coming and coming. Apparently the dog had devoured the entire kitchen trash bag complete with the day’s garbage and well, it didn’t settle too well. Once the bag had been “dropped” she was fine.</p>
<p>And then there was the time my dog swallowed a Teriyaki skewer in one piece. But that’s a story for another time…</p>
<p>When my dog was having neurological symptoms, I recorded it on my video camera and took it in to the vet’s office with me (because I knew she wouldn’t do it there). The vet was thrilled to be able to see the evidence and highly recommends it for these kinds of situations. </p>
<p>So you might want to keep a camera/smartphone close by in case it happens again.</p>
<p>When my beloved matt was acting like that, we took him in. We got an xray because I was afraid he had gotten into some chicken bones. That’s when we found his splenic tumor. Since you don’t say anything about xrays, maybe your vet didn’t see any reason to suspect anything like that. I sure hope so! All the best to you and your beloved pooch!</p>
<p>teriwtt, That is a brilliant idea!</p>
<p>switters, when our Lab had similar symptoms, she was prescribed phenobarb for seizures. For a variety of reasons, it was not a good thing for her. Long story short: putting her on a low protein diet did the trick and the seizures stopped. I have no reason to think that this is the problem with your dog, but I mention it now just because it would have been an easy thing to have tried early on if I had only known</p>
<p>Hoping this was a one-time thing with your dog.</p>
<p>switters - so glad your dog made it through and got to the vet. I want to share my story so that you might be encouraged to ask your vet some different questions when the labs come back. I had a 12-year old collie who had started getting so agitated, pacing a lot, just seemed really miserable. I called a new vet who did house calls, and her specialty was helping euthanize dogs whose owners didn’t want the dog’s last memory to be a trip to the vet. I was sure it was time.</p>
<p>This new vet came to the house and said it sounded like the dog had dementia - a sort of dog version of Alzheimers. She thought she was in decent shape, physically, and that my diagnosis of craze-inducing arthritis pain was off the mark. She said she could give her drugs that would improve her quality of life, and give her extra months. I said yes. One of the drugs was called selegilene, which is used somewhat experimentally on Parkinsons patients, and the other was a generic form of Xanax. Both human drugs, and Costco filled the scrips for me. My pup was immediately a happier and more normal dog. I was so grateful to this vet for saving her. The dog did eventually get to a point where the arthritis was so bad that she couldn’t stand up reliably, so we put her to sleep. But it was nice to know she had a good half year of extra life, and we enjoyed our time with her. If your dog’s tests are inconclusive, I hope you can ask your vet about dementia and possible treatments.</p>
<p>Fauxnom thanks I have thought of that . I asked the vet if the dementia can come in suddenly like that and she wasn’t sure. But the vet we saw that day was not the one we usually see. And about the issue of “suddenly” I think there have been signs, but they are subtle. Most of his changes have been for the good. For instance he is less aggressive with strange dogs, that sort of thing. Not afraid of thunder any more.</p>