My Dog Is Having Seizures: Everything We Didn't Know

March 14, 2021 between the times of 9-10 am, our family dog, Bentley, a healthy, young, high energy and normal German Shepard had a seizure on his 1st birthday and it was a terrifying experience for our family.

My parents and I were having a normal day, doing separate things around the house, one person in the kitchen, one person in their bedroom and the other in another room. I was in my room with my door closed to eat unbothered by Bentley, so I put him on the other side of my door. My mom was cooking in the kitchen as Bentley laid on the kitchen floor, simply relaxing. About a hour later she heard thumping, thinking Bentley was scratching himself. All of a sudden she claims to have heard an alarming moan or whine escape from him and she started screaming loudly for my Dad. I knew then that something was terribly wrong.

I jumped up, opened my door and saw him foaming at the mouth, shaking heavily, urinating on himself and unresponsive with his arms and legs stiffly sticking out. Immediate panic set in for me. I didn't know what to do, who to call, how long he had been having a seizure, I was in shock as my parents and I stood over him calling his name waiting what seemed like forever, for him to gain consciousness.

My parents stood over him, not knowing what to do, but wanting to help him. They called his name repeatedly, I ran in my room and more panic set in, so much that I had a panic attack. I told myself, "I can't do this. I can't go through this again" I thought to myself I can't loose another dog at home from unknown circumstances (My 10 yr old German Shepard, Roxy passed away at home in Feb 2020 and my 14 yr old Jack Russell, Pheobe fell ill to Diabetes and we put her to sleep in Oct 2020). The panic attack set in, my heart was racing, I was hyperventilating, worrying, fearing the unknown, fearing helplessness, fearing the loss of control and wondering if he could die at any minute.

After about 10 minutes of panicking, crying, waves of traumatic emotions, I called my boyfriend Dre on video-chat to calm me down. At this time, as Bentley is gaining consciousness, my Dad picked up all of his 111lbs off the floor so that he can stand up on his own. Bentley stumbled a little, dazed and confused. He began to look at us as we stood 6ft away surrounding him. He aggressively barked at us and stared at us as if he didn't recognize us. This was scary. He was disoriented, still foaming at the mouth, his hair standing up on his back. All we could do was stay back, in fear he'd bite one of us if we came in close.

My Dad gave him the command to go downstairs, he listened, and we immediately closed the door, he barked and barked. He tried to open the back door with his paws while barking and panting. It took Bentley about 20 mins to calm down and my Dad opened the back door for him to go outside. Outside, he barked as I walked up to the door. He was still barking aggressively as if he didn't know who I was. I calmly stood at the door, speaking to him and reassuring him. He sat outside for 30 more mins, in cool air, with a bowl of water that he drank out of, then knocked over. He appeared dehydrated, licking the puddles of water on the ground with his visibly dry tongue.

I knew we couldn't sit around because Bentley seemed normal again. I wasn't going to sit around waiting all day like we'd done with Roxy early last year (within 6 hours she couldn't keep food or water down, she lost mobility, her body shut down and she passed away). I told my parent I wanted to take him to the vet and within 2 hours we did and spent the entire day there. We informed the Vet of his symptoms, what we all experienced, and they spoke to us about seizures in dogs, they said dogs can be blind minutes after the seizure causing them to be scared and become aggressive. They wanted to do blood work, Bentley wouldn't let any vet staff come near him to perform their exams without us around, so they sent him home with sedative pills to calm him down and mellow him out the next day so they could test his blood and let us know something about his health.

3-4 days later, the Vet informed us that the platelets in his blood were low. For normal dogs platelet levels in the blood should be 140 something, but Bentley's was 120 something. According to the VCA Animal Hospital, platelets are made in the bone marrow, they join forces to close broken or leaking blood vessels and stop blood loss which is very important to the process of blood clots. As for what caused the seizure, that is still unknown and seizures in dogs can be genetic or simple occur out of no where. Seizures can occur in dogs as young as 6 months to 1 yr old, but typically it's developed much later in life. There are 3 phases of which they can occur.

3 Phases:

1. Pre-ictal: The dog may seem restless, super alert, or anxious/scared, there's a change in brain activity here

2. Ictal: The dog may experience light convulsions (shaking), to full on violent shaking, loss of consciousness

3. Pre-ictal: After minutes of shaking, the dog gains consciousness, but seems confused, disoriented, dazed, and salivates

Seizure symptoms:

-Stiff Limbs

-Head pulled back

-Violent movements

-Loss of Consciousness

-Light or Hard Convulsions (shaking)

-Drooling or Foaming at the Mouth

-Panting

-Brief blindness (as they gain consciousness)

-Aggressive Barking

-Overheating of head, neck, chest and stomach

-Urination or Defecation in the moment

-Disoriented, dazed, confused after

-Seizures lasting longer than 4 minutes

What to Do:

-Move them to an open, comfortable, safe, flat area

-Do not touch them, their face, their mouth (they may bite)

-Call out to them, call their name vocally from a safe distance

-Time the seizure, write down how long it occurred and the symptoms

-Record the dog having the seizure/gaining consciousness so that the Vet can see it (you may forget this due to the panic or worry you feel, but it helps the Vet)

-Immediately contact your Vet or an Animal Hospital

-Cool the pet down, use a cool towel on their head, neck, chest and stomach or give them cold water to drink (to avoid over heating)

Seizures for dogs can also happen last longer than 5 mins, which is called "status epilepticus", it's a type of epilepsy that's severe and needs immediate treatment by a Vet. Seizures can also happen in "clusters", which is called cluster seizures, where a dog can have multiple seizures within short periods of time, this too will need immediate treatment by a vet.

6 days later, Bentley had 2 more seizures, this time in his sleep, which was very scary to wake up to. His first was at 3:45 am and the second was 7:20 am. There was a sense of control and capability without panic this time around, I screamed for my Dad and he pulled Bentley into a more open area of the house, by this time Bentley urinated all over him self and his convulsions were harder. The first seizure lasted about 5 mins, same symptoms. The second seizure happened in the living room while he slept, and after 5 mins he was able to come out of it on his own as we looked from afar, calling his name behind a quickly built barricade.

After the second seizure he gained consciousness quicker and appeared normal almost immediately which was very strange and alarming to us. He spoke to him, called his name and reassured him for about 15 mins, but it was so unusual because he seemed to recognize us, wagged his tail and was completely opposite of aggressive or confused like before. About 10 mins later, we commanded him to go downstairs and outside the house. After these episodes, we were back at the vet for the same thing. The Vet highly recommended starting him on seizure meds to prevent them from happening and to keep him calm.

Now, it has been two weeks of meds and he hasn't had any seizures, however the Vet mentioned once on the pills, he will have to continue to take them for the rest of his life. If he doesn't take them, the seizure may happen more often and more severely. For him to go from a happy, healthy, energetic, playful and normal dog to having seizures after 1 yr old life has been a difficult, stressful, worrisome, scary adjustment for our household because they are random episodes and because he's still very young. Having gone through this 3 times within 6 days, it would be best that we continue the seizure meds and go from there.