Thursday, September 27, 2012

Miss Izzy - Seizures in Dogs

I'm here in my office this afternoon and curled up under my desk is Miss Izzy.  Snoring of all things!  She's an awesome dog.  A rescue, terrier mix that has brought bucket loads of happiness to our family.  We think she's around 12 - 13 years old, and she's getting gray just like the rest of us old ladies!  She's all terrier!  She loves hunting mice, rats, lizards, and hates squirrels with a passion.  Miss Izzy loves long walks, and car rides.  She has been an absolute doll around the chickens, even if they sneak up behind her on occasion.  She'll just trot off in another direction.  She's stubborn, and will give you a "stare down" until you ask her the right question;  go for a walk, get a treat, are you hungry, etc.  Once you ask the right question she hops around with excitement.  She does not bark to be let outside, she stares at you. 

She loves it when her girls come home to visit, or when we tell her Granny's coming over to see her.  She waits at the door (did you notice I didn't say patiently) for them to arrive. She's never destroyed a stuffed animal she wasn't told was hers.  She can dig a mean hole under a fence in no time flat!  Izzy listens most of the time, but sometimes only when it's convenient for her, or until our tone of voice changes.  She HATES a bath.

We had a scare earlier today, not our first, but worth mentioning as it was the worst so far.  She had another seizure.  This one lasted much longer than those in the past.  She has had 1-2 seizures that we are aware of (since we are not always home with her, there's no way to really tell) each year for the past few years. 

During the seizure she looses all of her motor skills, stiffens up, wobbles and sticks her tongue out.  Sometimes her eyes glass over and it's as if she can not hear you.  This time was a bit different, physical signs were there, but her eyes didn't glass over and we could calm her while talking in a soothing voice.  We kept her away from anything she could get hurt by, and actually took her outside with a larger open area.  Now she's extra tired, and has trouble jumping up on the couch.  Common short lived side effect.

Per her Vet, she doesn't suffer from them often enough to justify medication, and there are other side effects from the medication which at this point do not out weigh the good.   We'll be keeping an eye on her and if things get worse, we'll keep the option of medications open.

Poor thing, felt so embarrassed after the event and wanted to run and hide as if she did something wrong.  She's particular that way.  She embarrasses easy.  We convinced her, finally, that she did nothing wrong and that it would be just fine to get some TLC from Mom.  She's stuck by me since the episode.  I guess it's a Mom thing.





4 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh Izzy, she's precious. I just love dogs that communicate so well.

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  2. She sounds like a great dog. Personally I think dogs are the best of all animals. I love mine. She is my best buddy and a great help around here. I bet yours is too. My Lucy is also getting older. She is ten and I just don't know what I am going to do without her. Hope Miss Izzy avoids any more of those. They can be so frightening.

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  3. I had a basset hound who had seizures too but the vet did some test and found out he was epileptic(spelling?). he got him on some pills and he didn't have anymore

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    1. We had Miss Izzy looked at too, and at this point they can not determine if she is in fact epileptic or not. I'm glad it's not a common occurence.

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