marymrumfelt
Forums Enthusiast
So as most of you know my dogs have some neurological disorder that remains a mystery. We've been tracking it for about a year and a half now, a little less but close enough.
We can't draw ANY common factors! It's the strangest thing. We noted our girl has had roughly 20 episodes in 19 months. The beginning ones start out with a pattern of happening in clusters of three, usually spaced a day apart. About a year old, they tapered off and now are sporadic and haven't had more than one episode a month for almost a year. Sometimes she goes no months, so the number is high based on when they first started. About 7 of those times she's urinated and vomited on herself... with most of those times being in the latter part. So they're becoming less frequent, but more severe when they do happen. Three of them have been when she was in the crate beforehand, so we thought stress brings them on, but it might also just be statistics... she is in her crate whenever we leave, which isn't often, but maybe 3/20 would be correct percentage. Lily always has them at night and has never had a day time one.
My boy has never had them in clusters, but he's almost always urinated on himself. He's never, however, vomited. He's very, very sensitive to medicines and anything like flea medicine, heart worm medicine, bug spray -- he will almost always have an episode the following day. He has absolutely no other pattern then that. He's had them in the day/night. Mostly day in the beginning, but now it varies. He's only had about 13 episodes and he developed them later than Lily.
I've been really trying to observe them when they go into their episodes. They usually last about eight hours and they usually come out of it slowly with mostly sleeping and then waking up and being there again. I'm really not sure what's going on in their little mind but they do appear very scared and clingy. They know something is off and while this may sound odd, they look "off." They don't look like themselves and it's really sad and strange b/c I wonder what is going on. They know their name/treat/walk and will beg for a treat even... but those motor skills are off and something else is missing too. They don't have any emotions, which is weird b/c these dogs are FULL of emotion. I have no clue what caused it or what it is, but I do know two of their brothers don't have these issues. They never received any additional vaccines minus the first puppy set and have never been dosed with flea/heart worm and that's really when Theo's set in so that might be why. Lily, looking back, has had it, we think, since a baby. We thought she was wobbly and cute and sleepy but now we think it might have been episodes. We're blessed to have the homes of their brothers be diligent and understanding of the potential risk there.
It's so fascinating! It is sad, but to be fair, we're lucky to only have 20 bad days and 13 bad days because it could be much worse. While, of course, not happy about it, I do realize we're very, very blessed to have what we do -- which is 345 good days a year with them!
Plus they've helped me learn oh so much about life and about health and about always taking advantage of the good days and making them count.
Thanks again for all the well wishes along the way!
We can't draw ANY common factors! It's the strangest thing. We noted our girl has had roughly 20 episodes in 19 months. The beginning ones start out with a pattern of happening in clusters of three, usually spaced a day apart. About a year old, they tapered off and now are sporadic and haven't had more than one episode a month for almost a year. Sometimes she goes no months, so the number is high based on when they first started. About 7 of those times she's urinated and vomited on herself... with most of those times being in the latter part. So they're becoming less frequent, but more severe when they do happen. Three of them have been when she was in the crate beforehand, so we thought stress brings them on, but it might also just be statistics... she is in her crate whenever we leave, which isn't often, but maybe 3/20 would be correct percentage. Lily always has them at night and has never had a day time one.
My boy has never had them in clusters, but he's almost always urinated on himself. He's never, however, vomited. He's very, very sensitive to medicines and anything like flea medicine, heart worm medicine, bug spray -- he will almost always have an episode the following day. He has absolutely no other pattern then that. He's had them in the day/night. Mostly day in the beginning, but now it varies. He's only had about 13 episodes and he developed them later than Lily.
I've been really trying to observe them when they go into their episodes. They usually last about eight hours and they usually come out of it slowly with mostly sleeping and then waking up and being there again. I'm really not sure what's going on in their little mind but they do appear very scared and clingy. They know something is off and while this may sound odd, they look "off." They don't look like themselves and it's really sad and strange b/c I wonder what is going on. They know their name/treat/walk and will beg for a treat even... but those motor skills are off and something else is missing too. They don't have any emotions, which is weird b/c these dogs are FULL of emotion. I have no clue what caused it or what it is, but I do know two of their brothers don't have these issues. They never received any additional vaccines minus the first puppy set and have never been dosed with flea/heart worm and that's really when Theo's set in so that might be why. Lily, looking back, has had it, we think, since a baby. We thought she was wobbly and cute and sleepy but now we think it might have been episodes. We're blessed to have the homes of their brothers be diligent and understanding of the potential risk there.
It's so fascinating! It is sad, but to be fair, we're lucky to only have 20 bad days and 13 bad days because it could be much worse. While, of course, not happy about it, I do realize we're very, very blessed to have what we do -- which is 345 good days a year with them!
Plus they've helped me learn oh so much about life and about health and about always taking advantage of the good days and making them count.Thanks again for all the well wishes along the way!
