This is not strictly a Koolie question, but I told my friend I'd put it in the forum to see what came back due to the expertise here. A friend has a (now) healthy 2.5 year old lab. It appears he is epileptic and has had a fit about once every 6 weeks for the past 7 months. Apart from this he is healthy and seems to recover well enough from the episodes. It is distressing to observe though, and it sure doesn't look like it does him any good.

He has been to the vet who has confirmed this, and has wanted to treat the dog with phenobarbitol. We looked it up and it appears to be the first choice initially, but it is a sedative.Are there other drugs? Are they sedatives too? My friend is worried about sedating him ,( it is a sedative for sure) as he does need a bit of a poke along activity wise every now and again, being a big lab and all. What are the other options. Does he have to be treated at all. Have other people had to deal with this condition, and how.

I've never heard of an epileptic Koolie. Does it occur? I believe about 5% of all dogs do suffer from it.
Thanks
Shaunagh

I had a Cattle dog who was epileptic and her treatment was phenobarbitone. She was about 2 1/2 when it started too. She led a good life and never appeared to be sedated from her treatment. I have heard that if the fits occur more often than every six months, the dog requires treatment or the fits could get worse. I suppose phenobarb is the choice because it's relatively cheap. I know they use it in humans too.

You would have to ask a vet about other options.

When I worked in daycare my favourite client was epileptic, although he never had a fit at daycare. I am pretty sure that he was on phenobarb and he certainly did not seem sedated - he had probably the most text book perfect temperament of any dog I'd ever met (he managed the group in such a way that I think he must have sat down one day and read Turid Rugaas ;-) and was very playful for a 9 yr old (he was tennis ball obsessed).

He did seem to learn a bit slowly, though - whether the drug contributed to that I'm not sure. He's a Foxy - and that's not the only reason I love him, everyone there adores him and thinks he's the best dog they have - and they normally learn really quickly.

tehehe - you know you're a dog person, I think, when you say 'daycare' without it even occurring to you that ppl are going to think about children's daycare.

So far there have never been any recorded incidences of epilepsy in the Koolie breed.

You say he appears to have epilepsy have the Vet confirmed this?

I ask because my girl Titch is only after 6 years, finally recovering from an auto immune problem which caused her initially before she was diagnosed to have similar episodes to epilepsies.

Possibly one a month, until she required treatment and they discovered she had an immune problem where her immune system would attack her blood cells, eventually creating anaemia.
In many other cases we have seen this result in death, we were lucky.

Tj, have you been able to get an actual diagnosis/label for Titch's condition? My Foxy had autoimmune haemolitic anaemia when she was 12 but recovered. It caused inappetence and wobbliness, although not anything I would say looked like a fit. I guess a fainting spell looks similar to a small fit (petit mal?). How was Titch treated?
From your post Tj, am I right in thinking you've seen this in more Koolies that just Titch? or that you've seen it in dogs of other breeds? Sorry about all the questions, but you've totally peeked my interest.

About epilepsy stats, I'm under impression that epilepsy does occur as an inherited condition at a fairly high frequency in some breeds, but that it also occurs at a low rate in the dog population generally as it does in the human population and that that is probably inevitable, and that if it isn't known in Koolies it's probably just that it hasn't been reported, rather than that it never occurs.


I just looked it up, at certain doses Phenobarb does affect learning and reaction times (in humans, so assume the same is true for dogs). Don't know whether that means that the Foxy I knew was on too high a dose or whether to get control of his seizures they had to medicate him at that level.

Thanks folks for the info. I will pass it on, although I'm sure the vet already has. I have actually seen episodes of human epilepsy, and also my friends dog have a fit. I must say the canine epilepsy looks more distressing. There is a kind of running on the spot (but on his side, unconcious, and frothing at the mouth, and his neck was distended,and having immediately to go and evacuate his bowels afterward. Then exhaustion. In fact, the first fit came on about 7 months ago, but in fact he has only really had 3 since then as far as she can estimate. I saw the last one.

He is one of those dogs which will sleep all day anyway as it is, and needs actively directed exercise. I'm not surprised Koolie Mums little Foxy friend kept bouncing along. They do that don't they! Anyway, in this day and age I was just wondering if there were more modern alternatives. It is a WW2 drug from what I can gather. So thanks for the info. I guess if the first line of defence doesn't work out, there will be another one.

Tjukurpa, what was the auto immune problem in your Titch? Glad to know she got over it. Gawd, never heard of that in a dog. I guess most people don't really spend the time or money to find out though, eh? They just see a sick dog and do the inevitable.

Yes Titch was diagnosed with IMHA (Immune Mediated Haemolytic Anaemia).
I should have been clearer with her symptoms regarding the episodes, they resembled minor fits, twitching, flicking of the eye but she was completely limp, like you say, she fainted.

The other cases 4 to be exact were from different breeds, Labrador, Foxy, cocker, and I forgot the other one but they all died, either after the blood transfusions or just no fight.
Titch was recorded with the lowest count of Haemoglobin out of those cases, which was 40.
Normal range is around 120 -180 her count is now steady at 168.
She never had a transfusion.

And going on her performance over the weekend working sheep at Binalong station, she is going from strength to strength.
I hope Silhouette gets to show you photos she took, truly inspiring for a Koolie I had to consider once I might lose.
Thank god she chose to fight and is still with me for a long and healthy life.

Can you tell me how quickly your own dog was diagnosed and her treatment, did she have a fast recover, do you know what the trigger might have been.
Can you recall her first episode and where she had it.

I thought there might be similarities between the two that might give more understanding to how it happens.

All the best with the Epilepsy, I hope he receives the best treatment he deserves

This is interesting.My Jacksy has funny twitchy episodes in his sleep. Alby does not at all. They are not like the fit I saw in the Lab, plus you can wake him from them, but it's like really active dreaming, but as I said, kind of twitchy. Odd. Anyone else ever heard of this?

I've seen lots of dogs with an active dream state - paws twitching, eyes flickering whilst closed and sometimes even making noises. I've always put it down to dreaming - wouldn't it be interesting to know what they dreamed of? Not every dog seems to do it so actively though. Occasionally when the dog seemed to be quite "active" in their dream state I have woken them gently by stroking or talking to them but they never seem distressed by the dreaming.

I see that sort of dreaming activitiy in some of our Koolies, always put it down to an active dream, you just call them or place your hand on them and they either wake up or drift up from the heavy sleep they must be in to a lighter stage and settle down.

When I was young (long long ago!) we had a cocker spaniel with epilepsy. This was caused because her skull was too small for her brain causing pressure. She was the runt of the litter and mum got her for free when we picked up our other cocker. I can't remember when she first showed signs of epilepsy but her fits were infrequent early in her life. Quite distressing to watch and hear. Writhing, paddling, foaming and screaming. When she stopped fitting it was like she was driven to move but she could not see or hear so had to be gently steered around to avoid hurting herself. I can't remember what drugs she may have been on but I think it was only when she had the fit she had the drugs. Unfortunately as she got older her fitting got much much worse with several fits occuring over a day and more frequent. After seven fits in one day our vet came and took her away, she said her organs were being torn apart by the fits. She was pts and her body donated to the university for research as little was known about dog epilepsy then. She was a lovely little girl - solid black with a little white chest stripe. She loved mum to bits.

Oh how tragic for you, but wonderful of you to donate her for the betterment of future dogs.

We did the same when we sadly lost our beautiful boy at nine months to junior renal failure many years ago also to give his death meaning.

I know it all helps along with the healing.

Both my girls are active dreamers, lots of twitching and noises. They do it more when they have had a full day with work or excitement. I think that dogs are quite capable of dreaming as I am sure that we are not the only species that dreams.

Interesting to note that other dogs have been put to science, mum's last dog suddenly died from a cogenitive brain disorder she went down hill in a week. Mum donated her to the university to help research in it as it is very uncommon, and interesting tidbit mum's dog was a designer breed a "moodle", she has another "moodle" even though I tried to persuade her to get a toy poodle. I think it may have been a result from her breeding.

Yes, IMHA was what my Dinky's condition was called (and she was off course a Foxy!). But I got the impression (and my memory at this length is a little blurry) that that was sort of the name they gave the symptoms, rather than any statement about what had caused it, which I think is a bit of a mystery. It does seem that Foxies might have a high-ish incidence although as far as I'm aware there's no evidence of it running in families.

Not sure what her haemoglobin count was, but her red blood cell count was 12 when she was diagnosed which was pretty scary. She had large numbers of tiny baby blood cells, which were being destroyed before they could mature. Her recovery (thanks to the wonder drug - IMO - prednisilone - can't remember exactly what else she was on) was straightfoward with no backwards steps, apart from a terrible outbreak of ringworm.

Over about a week before she was diagnosed she had eaten poorly, which was very strange for her, the day she was diagnosed was the first day that I noticed her seeming weak - her backlegs especially. Her gums were pale, although at the time I wasn't as switched on to watching gum colour as I am now, and didn't usually look in their mouths.

About 2 yrs after the IMHA she was diagnosed with a large lung tumour. The IM specialist who had originally treated her and had been still regularly monitering her was away (she had also moved from the hospital near us to the uni) so we went back to the hospital for that diagnosis and her treatment. But when Mary (the original IM vet) got back a few days later and I was talking to her she said that the last Foxy she'd treated for IMHA had also gone on to develop a tumour a few yrs later. So I wonder if there is a link there. But there's a high incidence of tumours in 14 yr-old dogs, whether they've had IMHA or not, so maybe it doesn't mean anything.



Interesting to think about dogs dreaming - I suspect that the dream might be dominated by scent, as ours are by sight.

Titch was pretty straight forward as well onto the prednisilone once a day to shut down her immune sytem to allow her to recover then the slow gradual weening off.

She has one tablet once a week now and is tested every month, no signs of a tumour, but she is only six, correction she was diagnosed in 05 so it been three years not six (need to read what i write sometimes)

Her RBC was 1.51 normal range is 5.5 - 5.8 so yes very scary.
I too check gums regularly or under the eye socket to be sure.

Yes, my mistake, it was her pcv that was 12.

Ha, like you're not going to get a call on that statement! What do you mean? Firstly I always thought that dreaming threw up stuff from all parts of the sense world, well in humans anyway. I'm kind of divided as to whether it's anymore than dross, like a psychic clean out, yanno. But in animals, what could it be about; dogs in particular, given that they participate so much in our world (inner and outer)? I hope you get my implications in advance :)

BTW, I apologise in advance. I am getting new glasses, and my typing communication is rubbish. It takes so long to correct though that I am kind of letting some of it lie. Now, here's an interesting fact about humans of the two finger typing variety. Notwithstanding they are convinced that they don't look at the keyboard when they type, as they have become quite quick over the years; they do. This is evidenced by my most recent efforts elsewhere and here! Aren't we funny beasts?

Do you dream about smells? I can't remember ever doing so. I'm not saying it's not possible that humans can dream about experiences of smelling, but I don't think it's the main way we dream (not for me, at least). (I did say I thought their dreams might be dominated by scent, not exclusively about scent).

With dogs, I would think that they might dream more visually than we dream about scent - their sight being more important to them than our ability to smell is to us - but I think scent would be as or more important.

I'm also of the view that dreams don't mean anything (although sometimes I like to think that they do, and the idea of archetypes having inherent meaning across cultures really appeals to me - I'm inclined to believe that, not sure whether it's incompatible with what I just said about dreams), but are sort of leftovers from images that were in our minds during waking time (don't know much about dreams, but pretty sure that's the current 'official' view) so the kinds of images (not necessarily the actual images, and they can obviously be frightening experiences of a kind not many of us ever experience in waking time) we experience during wake times should relate to what we dream. Which for dogs would include lots of mental representations of smelling, I would think.

I didn't really think what I said was controversial??


By this did you mean that they don't live in world built around the stuff they're interested in? or that they might dream similarly to us?