Thread: epilepsy in dogs?

Have been informed by our vet that our vizsla either has a brain tumor or epilepsy, we are going to get some test done to establish what it is, just wandering if anyone has a dog with epilepsy and how hard it is to manage and how hard it is on the dog?

I had a Wire Hair that would fit , It would only happen when she was really tired . She would point game and when it flushed or broke she would flip out . Gave her a glucose lollie and she was fine as in never been better . Never went to a vet about it as it was really rare event . She lived on to 16.5 yrs old . Not sure if hers was a true form of epilepsy or not ?

crap news mate.
we had an epileptic wirehair prior to becoming breeders, you can manage it with drugs taken daily but it did turn old sam into a zombie.
it can be very hard on the dogs, and dangerous for some when they come out of the fit, some dogs get aggressive as they come round.

@kawhia what triggers the fits normally ?

Originally Posted by Munsey

I had a Wire Hair that would fit , It would only happen when she was really tired . She would point game and when it flushed or broke she would flip out . Gave her a glucose lollie and she was fine as in never been better . Never went to a vet about it as it was really rare event . She lived on to 16.5 yrs old . Not sure if hers was a true form of epilepsy or not ?

sounds like another issue i have heard about and all from the same line, sold a pup recently to a vet down south who described the same thing, we we able to find common links pretty quick as he also bred the dog, my own dog sired a bitch that did the same thing when he was used over the same lines.

Mine was bred from a vet down south , but shit 20 yrs back

Originally Posted by Munsey

@kawhia what triggers the fits normally ?

for the non epileptic fits the vet mentioned some types of food and electric fence shocks damage... next time ya dog gets a belt jump on the ground next to it to see the dogs reaction.

Originally Posted by Munsey

Mine was bred from a vet down south , but shit 20 yrs back

dave dodd in ranfurly ???

Originally Posted by kawhia

dave dodd in ranfurly ???

Not sure I was sure he was in Alex i got her indirectly from breeder

It isn't always what it looks like. You mostly go to the vet after "it" happened. After describing the symptoms, Epilepsy is frequently the answer. Frequently a lot of these diseases look very similar.
We discovered that glucose deficiency also happens regulary. It looks very much like epilepsy, but it's only a lack of sugar in the blood. This also is a serious problem, but it's different. Dogs collapsing due to lack of sugar is bad, but sometimes is cured by feeding them a bit in the morning ( before shooting) and at noon when having lunch on the shoot day.
After epilepsie a dog can indeed look like a zombie and be completely off. Even bite out of fear, because he doesn't know what happens.

It certainly is a common problem in a lot of breeds. Trial dogs go faster and fatser and are only run for a very short time. Also on training. If a top dog has a such a problem it will never show up and will be passed on the progeny. The owner, in all honesty, might not even know it. I am as guilty as anybody. it's impossible to make a trial dog running frequently over long periods or he will pace himself.

Reed the article in Mike Smith's book on spaniels, about Badgercourt Druid. A dog found in almost all spaniëls. The dog started collapsing and died from it. His genes are found in any spaniel. Most are OK but some will carry "the" bad gene and have problems and pass them on.

No breed, no line ,.... is perfect. The old English breeders where brave and culled anything wich was not O.K. This no longer happens now. If you see a problem that you don't trust, cull and restart again with hopefully better blood.
There is one golden rule : if they are not right, they are wrong.

years ago i had a corgi who suffered from focal point epilepsy.as a psychiatric nurse id seen a lot of this so carted him off to the vet.vets often treated dogs with phenobarbitone ,hefty anticonvulsant shit even in humans .the problem was though ,as described a dog which is sedated and confused and hence may react unpredictably.
Whiskies seizures would start on the left side of his mouth -up through his face and periodically his whole head would convulse. we settled on a drug called dilasntin -not as sedative.
If i saw a seizure -bang a capsule in a little butter and slip in in the side of his mouth-he'd usually come right 10-15mins later.
alas i lost him to cancer of the spine @11 1/2yrs old.
i knew of a couple who has a german shepherd bitch who was on phenobarbitone for epilepsy.suspected cause was brain trauma altho how that came about was never actually discovered.
alas it only got worse so out of mercy they put her down.

Had an epileptic Labrador when I was a child, it was on phenobarbital for the rest of its life.

It is known in vizsla, although I don't know of any personally. I knew a lab that had epilepsy and all I will say is medicating it is a cruel as it fitting. It sounds terrible but if it is truly epilepsy and it is severe, please put it down

Originally Posted by tomo

Have been informed by our vet that our vizsla either has a brain tumor or epilepsy, we are going to get some test done to establish what it is, just wandering if anyone has a dog with epilepsy and how hard it is to manage and how hard it is on the dog?

How old is the dog? Epilepsy is most often diagnosed in young adult dogs, if the dog is older, it may be more likely to be something more sinister. As some others have mention low blood glucose is a separate issue - sometimes due to an insulin secreting tumour in the pancreas. Blood work is often done to rule out some other electrolyte abnormalities/liver disease etc. Heart failure is another rule-out for a fitting dog: eg fainting under excercise can easily be mistaken for a fit.
As far as actual epilepsy:
There are various medications for epilepsy, some of which have a sedative effect. Epilepsy isnt always medicated, only if the dog is fitting mutliple times a week or for longer than few minutes each time. "true" epilepsy has 3 phases, an initial time when the dog might looks a bit off, then the true fit which might be localised trembling or a whole body loss of consciousness, then the time afterwards when the dog is again not quite with it. Picking these phases can help with the diagnosis - there isnt any one test for it otherwise its an elimination of other possibilities.
Triggers for epilepsy in an affected animal are anything that creates excitement in the brain - heat, excercise loud noises, flickering movements and so on. A working or hunting dog that fits occasionally isnt always a big deal but frequent fits can be problem and there is always a risk of falling down a bluff (have heard of this happening)or even drowning if they fit at a bad time. Not ideal in a gundog.