My dog had a horrible seizure

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@Publisher, I told the vet that the seizure was so long that I had worried about his airway and/or just oxygenation in general. She told me under no circumstances to try to clear his airway as it was likely I could be bitten.

She also tried to assure me that even though it was horrible suffering from my perspective, that it is almost certain that he was completely unaware of what was happening. At the time, it seemed like he was aware and just unable to do anything about it. Logically, her assertion seems more likely.

He didn’t have another last night unless it was during the middle of the night. He sleeps in a crate downstairs, while our bedroom is upstairs.

Thanks for the various stories. Our dog has not had any changes in heartworm medications. He has been on several meds for a pinched nerve in his spine. One of them, Gabapentin, is sometimes used in dogs to prevent seizures! None of the others is known to cause seizures in dogs.

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How is your dog this morning @Nrdsb4 ??

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@abasket, so far so good. He seems pretty normal.

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My dog’s seizures were separated in time by about a month or two. Was not being given any flea/tick or heartworm or any other medications.

Afterwards, I would just collapse in the corner crying & holding my dog for about an hour. He was disoriented & seemed unaware of what had transpired. Really disturbing & unpleasant experiences. If I recall correctly, it first occurred at age 12. He lived until age 15, just shy of his 16th birthday. Probably my fault because I never had he or his brother neutered. He had the call of the wild. Fathered at least one litter of coyote pups. I know because my wife & I could not sleep when he was gone. I would spend hours driving around at night searching for him. Once I parked my car on a hill facing upward & put my high beams on. Four or five baby coyotes ran by in a line followed by my dog. Knew he was the father because the pups all had black coats just like their dad.

P.S. We had our dogs bathed every month at a nearby upscale dog kennel. They may have used a flea & tick shampoo. I now recall that they stopped offering flea & tick shampoo unless the dog had a confirmed case / presence of infestation. Did not think about it then, but the flea & tick monthly baths may have been the cause.

I have learned to rely on all natural shampoo products for our current pups.

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I had a precious old lady toy poodle who developed seizures very late. They were much milder than you described, but they were noticeable. I took her to the vet who suggested all kinds of tests that a neurology specialist could do, but she was 16 and deaf and blind, and I just couldn’t put her through extreme testing in an unfamiliar place when she would have no idea what was happening. Once they were happening more and more frequently, it was time to say good-bye. :frowning: Furry hugs to you and your pupper – hopefully it was a one-time thing.

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We have friends who have had 3 golden retrievers who developed idiopathic seizures as they aged. I remember her telling me that it is common in certain breeds.

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All of our dogs are rescue pups & all have been about 50% Labrador retriever. When I was young, our family & several neighborhood families all had purebred Golden Retrievers, but I never knew–fortunately–of any who experienced seizures.

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My first Golden developed seizures as a result of a tumor. Unfortunately he died of lymphoma before we could get him fully diagnosed and attempt to treat it. He was only 7.

I refused to give my current golden Bravecto a couple of years ago because of hearing stirrings about it causing seizures in some dogs. No way.

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I hope your buddy is having a better day today.

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Praying it was a one off. Very scary!

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Our dog hasn’t had any more seizures. But TWICE since this happened, he has peed on my bedroom carpet with no apparent concern for the fact that he knows this is not okay. He’s done it right in front of me.

Took him to the vet today, and he said, yes, it could be a brain tumor, could be a one off we’ll never know why. He did do some blood work.

Not too happy about the peeing. That’s something I really don’t want to have to battle. :frowning:

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What did the vet say about the peeing? That could be a teeny seizure.

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We had an Aussie that started seizing right after one year of age. She’d seize and then spend a good amount of time in a corner with her nose touching the wall. Once she got into the fireplace on the way to her favorite corner, so when I came home I found a trail of ashes in the wall at nose level, with the corner being extra saturated.

She ended up with a prescription of phenobarbital. Our vet told us to feed her baby food (like puréed chicken) after a seizure.

I miss that dog. She seized during a camping trip while we were putting up a tent. Spent days looking for her. Not a lot of corners in the woods.

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I was reading about symptoms of brain tumors in dogs, since seizures are usually an early sign of them. Another symptom of a canine brain tumor is hearing loss. We’ve noticed this in our dog in the last six months or so.

I also read about all kinds of treatments: surgery, radiation, etc. Can’t imagine putting our elderly dog through all that.

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At the time I saw him, he’d only done it once, so he didn’t really comment.

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My 13 year old cocker spaniel was stone deaf. We knew it the year he did not even get up on Halloween when the doorbell rang. He had seizures long before that.

Hopefully, your pooch is getting back into the swing of things.

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Isn’t it common for older dogs to lose their hearing? It’s possible that it’s not related at all to anything besides loss of hearing due to aging.

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Our Cavalier lost his hearing a few years before he died. Never had a seizure and as far as we know didnt have a tumor.

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Older and peeing where they know not to, when it’s a new issue, is supposed to be one reason to consult the vet. Considering the seizure, if it happens again, maybe you call and ask for a callback. Of course, that could be old age or stress.

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Our wonderful mutt suddenly got some sort of seizure disorder when she was 11 or so while we were on vacation in Cape Cod. She seized twice in the space of a few hours. The first one lasted only 10-20 seconds (which seemed like a lot at the time) including incontinence. She was a little disoriented afterward, but seemed fine after 15 minutes or so. A few hours later, however, she had another seizure the initial phase of which lasted for several minutes – involuntary leg motions, complete nonresponsiveness, foaming at the mouth. Then she got up and started walking around stiffly and apparently aimlessly, but generally in an expanding spiral, still completely nonresponsive to having her name called or being touched. This eventually took her outside the house where we were, and she wound up crawling under the house (something she had never done before in a decade of going there) and going to sleep for hours.

I was sure she was dead. I was sitting by the place she had gotten under the house from – I couldn’t have made it to where she was, the space was too tight – sobbing. Finally, I could make out that she was, in fact, breathing. I sat there until she finally crawled out again, then took her to the vet. (I had spent a good deal of the waiting time on the phone with vets, or doing online research.)

The vet thought she had some sort of tick-borne illness. She prescribed a bunch of drugs, including antibiotics, tramidol, and steroids. (The steroids made her pee in the house plenty.) The dog had one more brief seizure a few days later, after which we led her to a dark bedroom to recover.

She lived another three years, and as far as we know she was seizure-free, without any specific medication. She aged a lot instantly, however, and was never as athletic again as she had been. Also, she was constantly molting, losing a full coat and replacing it every few months.

One day I came home from work early, to find her in the middle of a huge seizure, alive and eyes open but completely unresponsive in a pile of her own feces, in a place she would never have chosen to lie. She was occasionally jerking her legs. I waited for 20 minutes and there was no change in her condition. I wrapped her in a blanket and brought her to the vet ER. She never regained consciousness as far as I could tell. When the vet saw her, he asked if she was alive, then he said, “You can’t possibly want me to try to revive this dog.”