~Anne~

For those with epi's on Bromide I just came across this warning about the handling of it; It is from this article; Article link

Best to take her as soon as possible LM. The important thing is to not let her overheat during the episode and keep her out of harms way during the seizure. No need to hold her or turn her over, just let her go through it, keep her cool and be there when she comes out of it with gentle patting and soothing tones.

I mix egg with yoghurt or milk or both about twice a week. I also feed sardines twice a week. I have just started to give fish oil capsules daily to my guys and the cat. This was mainly due to the epi dog but I figure it can't hurt the other guys as well. They haven't been on them long enough to notice a huge change but I can certainly see a change already in the cats coat.

The fish have oil if they are in springwater. It is the fish that have the oil.... literally. The rest is added oil and is not the same as fish oil... in fact vegetable oil is vegetable oil.... fish oil is fish oil. :D If your dog is prone to weight problems feed them sardines in springwater. Also, som edogs will have loose motions if they ingest too much oil and so feeding them sardines in oil may upset their stomach. Because I have Pugs and they are prone to weight gain I only feed them sardines in springwater.

I hope he settles too. I never give up on my rescues. Ralph is lucky to have been adopted by them and I consider myself blessed that I found them (or them, me). Here is a pic of Ralph when he came into my rescue (not a great one sorry)

Thanks Erny. I have had a few more email discussions with Ralph's owners and they have decided to take him back to the vet and so I haven't passed on your details yet but may in the future. In short this is part of what they have said;

Thanks staffy-lover. I have purchased some fish oil tabs and have been spiking them and squeezing the oil into his food. These ones have a really hard 'plastic' type coating that seem much harder then normal but I will start putting them in as they are.

I'm really not sure. Erny, would it be rude of me to ask you if I could put you in direct email contact with Ralph's owners? I value your advice and the situation really is vexing and troublesome. I would need to check with the owners too of course. His suffers from pigmentary keratitis caused by dry eye. This has been alleviated and a percentage of his sight has been restored using any eye cream called Optimune. He suffers from extremely poor night vision. His hearing, although it was investigated, was only checked out by my Vets before he was adopted and apart from checking the internal parts of the ear with a camera no hearing tests were done. There was no damage or problems seen under camera. He appears to hear certain pitches very well but had some difficulty picking direction. His new owner reports that she says his hearing is better then we at first believed.

Juene - Thanks for the link!!!!

Hi Arya, thanks for your post. Ralph was purchased as an 8 week old pup from a registered breeder. From all accounts it appears the 'breeder' was more of a byb and was breeding all manner of dogs. She is no longer registered. For the first few years he was well cared for and was a house dog although he started losing his sight at a very early age and was apparently diagnosed incorectly by a Vet who said nothing could be done for his sight. Consequently he was almost totally blind by 3 years of age. I am of the understanding he suffered no serious health issues apart from his sight and the loss of hearing was never investigated as it came on slowly. After his first few years the owner married and moved into a new home and Ralph became an outside dog. By all accounts he was cared for when it came to his basic needs and he was vaccinated roughly every 12 months but this was about it. He was surrendered with the reaosn that his owner was returning to work after ebing on maternity leave and she was worried about Ralph being 'lonely'. I never accepted this as a legitimate excuse at the time and I beleive now that it was partly his barking that was behind his surrender. At the time if surrender he had lived outside on his own for over 4 years. He was almost totally blind and losing his hearing. I seriously believe he has developed the barking issue because of loneliness and boredom during those years. Thanks again everyone for your posts!

Thanks Pax and Kirty. The idea that he may have something setting him off like ringing in his ears had never occurred to me but it certainly sounds plausible. I will relay all info back to them. Thanks again.

I just received this in response to my reply about the citronella collar.... they really are great people and I would love to be able to help them.

Ralph is a rescue that was re-homed by me approximately 6 months ago. I had posted here once before about his issues with barking and although I had not stopped the behaviour completely I was able to control it a fair bit by using a water spray. Ralphy has a hearing loss and this interferes with his training and he had very little vision when he first came into rescue but he was medicated for this and his sight has now improved. I never had issues with his restlessness as he was contained at night in a puppy pen. This is an email received from his new owners; His owners sound desperate. I have briefly suggest containing him at night as I did and perhaps trying a citronella collar. I have also suggested that worse case scenario would be to surgically de-bark him. His barking I believe is in-grained. He came to me after spending almost all of his life living outside as an only dog and I believe he has become desperately bored and lonely, particularly more so as his sight dissappeared and his hearing began to fade. He does hear loud noises well. Can anyone offer advice?

Shopping for anything all has the same rules.. shop around. I agree about the price of these kinds of products at Vets. Vets are there primarily to treat animals... not to play pet product supply store. Incidentally, my Vet sells Dog Rocks cheaper then I can buy them anywhere else but that is about it.

I feed my dogs twice a day anyway and so Monte has always had his meds in his food. Staffy-lover - what is the doseage rate for the fish oil tabs?? Monte weighs around 8.5 - 9 kilos on any given week. Also, do you break them open or give them to him as they are? Edited - spellink.

I disagree with your Vet and it sounds like you do to. It certainly appears to be a partial seizure by what you have described. Partial seizures, as you may know, only affect a part of the brain unlike the clonic tonic seizure that affects all of the brain. Each partial seizure can be entirely different becuase it depends on what part of the brain is affected. An example of a partial seizure that Monte has had is one that has occurred while he was eating. I am assuming it happens at this time as he gets so excited about his food thinking that he is always starving. He will being to eat and then he will start to wobble while his head is still down near his food. He then starts to make a gaging sound and the wobble turns into a stagger and, to me, it appears that he is choking and is not getting enough oxygen. At this point he does not respond to me nor does he appear aware of his surroundings. He has then dropped to his side and begun to stiffen before he abrubtly gets up, staggers around gaggin a bit more and then goes back to eating. On some occassions the dropping and stiffening hasn't occurred but the rest has. I will usually hold him back form his food as he is still wobbling and not quite conscious for a short while. Within a minute he is back to normal although restless. Partial seizures can take on many forms including 'fly snapping'. I think you should discuss the possibility again with your vet and look at perhaps increasing his meds. The reason being is that the pathway becomes easier with every seizure ocurrence and the partials may lead to full tonic/clonics. For further reading (and if you don't already know of these sites) I suggest having a search though these. They both contain a vast amount of info; Cainine Eilepsy Resource Centre Canine Epilepsy Guardian Angels

Sorry, I have been really slack. I promise I will though as soon as I get the chance.

Yes please. The one litre bottle would be just peachy!

Where do you get it from Pax?

What does the fish oil do staffy-lover? When you say it is working well, do you mena in reducing seizures or the affects of the meds?? What fish oil do you buy? P.S. How's your new career going? I hope all is well.

Sorry to hear that KC had another seizure. Our daylight savings finishes in a few weeks so I'll have to remember to re-adjust the time to gradually bring Monte back to the right time. I have discovered some info about the genetic link too which was very interesting. It was in the documents that Belljari sent to me but I haven't had the time to post it up.

I have never heard of it. I will pm you a link for a world wide canine epi list. If anyone has tried it or knows about someone on this list will.

Ahh Isee. Not being a breeder I don't always view things from a breeders view point. Having said this though, if I were to breed, there isn't a chance in high heavens that I would use a dog that had epilepsy. But this is because you can not prove it is not inherited... as opposed to it being proven to be inherited. As I said, I had also phoned the breeder to see if she was aware of any others in her lines with epilepsy and I thought it also best to alert her to the fact that Monte has it. Monte was desexed as soon as he came into my care as I am not a breeder and saw no reason to keep him entire.

I am aware there is research but I am not aware of any genetic link being proven. I thought you said they had proved there was a link and was interested to read the findings. There are several databases being created by US reseacrhers into the epilepsy to help determine a link and I know that last year someone claimed to have found one but I have never been able to find any research info confirming just that. Perhaps I'll google the name you gave. If you have printed copies are you able to photocopy them? I would really like to read it.

Got a website link furfru?