Dargo the dog, follow up?????

Dargo, maybe I missed it, but did the vet ever get you a final answer on what caused the siezures in Dargo? And how is he doing?

Thanks Bob. For the price of a decent used car, I only found out for sure what it is not. As a precaution I've had Dargo on phenobarbital. It's really been a challange. Having him on PB has really changed his personality. He will be 3 years old on the 30th of this month. Since I brought him home as a puppy and trained him (one day) where our property lines are, he had never, not even once, left our property. Now he seem constantly confused and will almost always wonder off.

He seems to remember most all of his "tricks" he knew how to do, but he is sloppy in the execution. Although he doesn't attack, after dark he will now not let anyone other than our family members approach our house if he is outside. Nobody has tried to call his bluffs, if that's what they are. He ran after, and would have killed if I didn't tell him to stand down, a stray dog that wondered onto our property yesterday.

So, I don't know what to do. The vet said that all that I described above are normal symptoms of taking PB, but that he'd eventually get used to it. I don't know what to do. He has not exibited a single instance of seizures, but I don't know if that is because he isn't going to have any or if the PB is preventing them. I've had no less than 4 vets examine him and each basically said that they don't know, so treat him for epilepsy. Three of them said that it well could have been something in the approx. 10 pounds of table scraps my wife fed him about an hour before all this started. I don't know what to do.

Sounds to me like he is taking too much phenobarbital? My malamute was on it too so I am very familiar with it. He started having epileptic siezures sometime shortly after turning two years old. PB solved 98% of the problems, but the key was to have him on the lowest doses we could keep him on and still have it prevent 98% of the siezures. Those siezures he did have, after being on PB were typically (although not always) much milder than we saw when he initially started having siezures. Now I can't recall the doses he was taking, but my malamute was also a larger dog than Dargo is by 30+ pounds, but I do know that we kept him on relatively higher doses initially and, under the direction and with the cooperation of the vets, we slowly reduced his dosage over a period of a month or so to a point where he was acting normally 100% of the time.

I do recall that we did alter our lives a bit to make sure he had his phenobarbital at the same time every day, day in day out, week in week out, no exceptions. Because we learned the hard way that a few hours could make a difference in him having a siezure or not.

Dargo, did your dog only have one seizure or many? I would talk to the vet about tapering off the dosage as it sounds like your dog is a little too stoned on the PB. Eventually, they will build up their tolerances to it and the side effects may not be so obvious.

I'd second Bob's advice about finding the lowest possible dose. Depending upon the severity of the seizures and frequency you may not need as much. If the seizures are manageable then you could theoretically do some experimenting and try to reduce the dosage until the dog starts seizing then increase it just slightly from that point. Again, it depends on the severity of the seizure. If the seizures are so bad that they are life threatening then I'd just stick with the stoned dog.

Of course, I'm not a vet or a doctor. Just did too much physiology and sports medicine stuff in my undergrad so sometimes I think I know what I'm talking about. Your vet probably knows best. I've found vets to be pretty reasonable and open to discussing these sort of things as long as they feel you are going to use common sense (and not sue them).

Don't let your wife feed the dog too much table scraps - they are dogs not garbage disposals. I will often take the table scraps and give a little to the dogs with their dry stuff. After a meal like thanksgiving the dogs have a week of scraps to make their bland kibble more exciting.

Oh one more thing, and this is a biggie. Siezures cause dogs brains to heat up. Literally can cook their brains and cause damage. After a bad episode we'd cool the malmute down with an ice bath or a water bath (depending on season, severity, etc).

You guys are both right on to what I'm thinking and what I've experienced. As far as heating up, after 25 or so non-stop grand mal seizures, his temp was elevated to the point that they put him on cool IV's as soon as we got him breathing but knocked out. PB, the seizures were so brutal that they were life threatening; he stopped breathing right when I got to the animal hospital.

I guess "stoned" is about the most accurate description of how he is acting on PB. He does not exibit the scary aggression he did when they had him on valium, diazapam (sp?) and who knows what else. Man, he was more than a handful then!

Now, part of him being stoned is odd. He wants to play like he used to, but he sounds like he is going to kill me. For example, he has always been trained that he can play "semi-rough" with me when I put on welding gloves. When the gloves are off, he won't play bite my hands. He is still that way now, but he has added this bone chilling growling and snarling along with his play. His tail is still wagging and he will stop immediately when told to stop, but he never added sound to his play before. I'm still being very cautious playing with a stoned dog, but he seems to know all the "rules" to the game.

I really hope he quits being lost. I'm not used to worrying about him wondering off. Heck, he has always known what "go to your room" means. He goes to his kennel and stays there. It has been funny in the past when I've had his kennel moved from it's usual spot in the garage for cleaning because he was obviously was confused, but would lay down where the kennel should be. Now when told to "go to your room", he goes into the garage and misses his kennel! He'll walk right next to it and then seem confused that he is not in his kennel. He then tries to "open" the side rather than going to the front where the door is open. This is why "stoned" seems to accurately describe him.

I have a remote control training collar, but I don't want to use it to "re-train" him because I don't think he is intentionally wondering off. I don't think he knows what he is doing. Using a shock collar at this point would seem to only be cruel and very counter productive. Actually, he has only worn the collar once; when he was about 3 months old. I don't know if it even works still.

One of my dogs didn't develop her voice until 3-4 years of age. Might just be a coincidence. Now she talks too much - but its cute.

You could put in "hidden" fence system around your property. I've used them in the past. They are a hassle to install and keep the batteries charged but they do give an audible alarm to remind the dog that they are going near the perimeter before getting zapped. Just a thought. I just used black wire and wove it along my fence rather than burying it. I have a dog that when he was younger needed a real fence and the hidden fence combined. The fence slowed him down enough to get a good shocking. He's pretty good around fences now.

I can't even imagine what it must be like handling a GS with siezures. Those teeth snapping a 100mph...wow! I've done a little searching about the subject and see it's more common in purebreds. Wonder why?

Any chance he took a hit to the head recently? The reason I ask is because after extensive testing, they concluded that the most likely cause of my siezures was due to a severe head impact, possibly during the car accident.

BadAttitude said:

I can't even imagine what it must be like handling a GS with siezures. Those teeth snapping a 100mph...wow! I've done a little searching about the subject and see it's more common in purebreds. Wonder why?

Any chance he took a hit to the head recently? The reason I ask is because after extensive testing, they concluded that the most likely cause of my siezures was due to a severe head impact, possibly during the car accident.

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Thanks BA. I cannot rule out any chance of a blow to the head since Dar has always had the run of our property; including about 1/8 mile of our driveway. It's "possible" that he got whacked by a delivery truck. I just don't "think" so, but you know what happens when you go "thinking".

The more common occurrence in pure breeds is largely due to inbreeding. That is one of the main reasons (inbreeding) that I went with a European bred GSD and have many years of breeding history. GSD's seem to have been inbred more than almost any other breed here in the U.S. Some people argue that we are all inbred, and all dogs are therefore inbred. That's not exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not wanting to begin a religious discussion.

Thanks PBinWA, I'd actually forgotten that I do have an Invisible Fence brand containment system around about 10 acres and two collars. I used it with my Shelties before they died. Each lived to be about 16 years old and died peacefully in their sleep. Anyway, they never would stay around unless they had their collar on. If the power went out, they seemed to know it immediately and were gone. Since I haven't used it in a few years, I likely would have to lay new wire, but that wouldn't be a problem. Thanks for the idea / reminder. I think I paid about $1500 for that system! I kept buying cheaper units but everytime we had a thunderstorm they got fried. The Invisible Fence brand never failed. Thanks again! Now you have me thinking; especially with the new GSD puppy I bought so Dar would have a companion after the Shelties died.

Our yello lab is on PB. It was a hard decision.

The first month was the worst. Acted alot like Dargo per your post.

Good news is that once the level determined is needed, our lab is is like normal again.

Only thing we noticed is that she likes to eat her food VERY quickly.

We can actually put the drug on our presciption plan which saves us about $20 a refill.