cwb3

Love this thread! What an adorable pup!!

FWIW, melatonin works pretty well to take the edge off in the evenings. For my epileptic border collie, I had my holistic veterinarian precribe a tablet form of CBD oil that paired with melatonin worked very well on those nights after a seizure when otherwise nobody in the house would get any sleep.

Yes I am transitioning a 9 1/2 y/o dog from Aglity to Nosework. She has a good amount of hound in her mix so it should be a nice fit.

Let us know what oyu find out Sue. At her age it is likely not epilespy, but a symptom of something else. Given her kidney history and her age I'd be hesitant about putting her on any conventional seizure medication. Losing control of bowel/bladder is pretty common during a seizure. Is she restful the hours and night following a seizure? If so that is good for you and her. Echo the comments about the general usefulness of vanilla ice cream or honey for the blood sugar. Melatonin and CBD oil are good if the seizures are followed by a period of restlessness or anxiety. Expect also that she is essentally blind for several moments following a seizure. I'm sorry to hear this, my border collie had epilespy and I don't wish that on any one's pup.

I am so sorry to hear the news. Read his book "Border Collie Wars" soon after getting Cowboy. It changed how I will think and act concerning Border Collies forever. His voice on the board was always one to read and listen to. I will certainly order An American Homeplace shortly. RIP good Sir.

You can try these links for additional research on Flyball opprotunities in your general area. https://www.flyball.org/getstarted/index.shtml https://flyballdogs.com/locator.html I am in Northern VA about 60 miles west of DC. The Mid Atlantic region is pretty good for flyball.

I do not know how far away you are from Blacksburg, but New River Rapids (NRR) is an active flyball club that hosts tournaments there a couple times a year. https://www.nrrflyball.org/ There are teams and tournaments in Roanoke, Blacksburg, several other sites in North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee within a 3 to 6 hour drive from where you live. NRR might be the closest Flyball club from where you live however.

Nice to have the board back up and running!

Trust your instincts and love every day with your pup.

I would so buy a pair of pajamas with that pattern on it!

I am so very sorry for your loss. Too soon. May Trout run free.

The epilepsy and the seizure meds had an effect of making him constantly hungry. To the point where he stated to go after poop, his or other animals. Sometimes I could call him off of it, other times I had to drag him off it. That was one of several reasons we chose to fade out the seizure meds. But once the poop eating habit was formed, it was hard to break. Just one of the multiple side complications that arose with the epilepsy. A rough disease that I hope someday we can get our arms around. Cowboy was a great and fun loving dog through it all however. I am so glad to have had him in my life.

Yes even though we were conditioned to expect bad things due to the epilepsy, having Cowboy go down so fast from organ failure was jarring. we kept up with all the regular bloodwork and all that. But did he eat something out in the woods/fields that smashed his pancreas? I never saw anything in particular and will never know I guess. He was from two good pups. No papers but I knew both sire and dam and they were both good border collies that most here would have liked. One other pup in Cowboys litter did have to be put down really young for epilepsy. Only learned that after Cowboy starting having seizures at age 4. Such a rough affection. Cowboy is the most wonderful and rewarding dog I've had in a whole lifetime of having dogs. Once I get my masters degree done in 2 years I will want to get another border collie to make a life with. All of you on this board, and everyone I see at USBCHA/VBCA, have taught me so much about the beauty and grace of the border collie bred for the right reasons. There is no finer canine creature. Cowboy really taught me that. You all demonstrate that is no accident. Peace/respect. Chuck Bimba

Rest In Peace my Cowboy. 2/5/12 - 3/25/18 Just 2 weeks following a wonderful Flyball weekend where Cowboy earned his Onyx title. We are almost positive it was his pancreas that failed. Little guy fought for 2+ years first with a mast cell tumor in his leg that was successfully removed. Then a short 2 months later he developed ideopathic epilespy. We were never able to get the seizures well under control, no matter what medication and combination of meds we tried. His seizures were every 12 to 14 days like clockwork starting around the age of 4. Eventually we started cycling him off the seizure meds, instead relying on alternatives such as coconut oil and CDB oils. That really helped his mood and his quality of life between the siezures. But the damage was done I guess to his organs, plus approximately 60 seizures total over the course of the illness. To his credit, Cowboy never lost his sweet demeaner, his friendlyness around other people and dogs, nor his love of doing a job well done. Be it agility, flyball, making sure every loose tree branch and stick was delivered to my feet. . . 6 years is too short, he had so much promise years 0-4, and was a sweet fighter over his last 2 years. May he be at peace now. . .going to miss this boy.

What if you are the DOG's emotional support animal? I guess we are doing it wrong!

Yes I have NO idea where it came from or if its even real! But I do sort of like it!

My dog has been resistant to seizure meds as well. Plus he really reacted badly to them at higher doses. Sleeplessness, restlessness, barking for attention, GI issues, eating his poop, always hungry. He does sometimes compulsively lick the floor in the kitchen, typically in the area near where we would thier food bowls down. I chalk that up to him being always hungry. A raw diet and supplimenting with coconut oil, tumeric, and CBDs, with melatonin at night, has really helped him calm down between seizures. I have paired his seizure meds down slowly, now he is just on a small amount of Potassium bromide, we eliminated Keppra and Phenobarbital entirely. His seizures occur every 14 to 16 days, but he does not cluster and bounces back quickly. So in Cowboy's case I chalk the floor licking up to food issues. Not self soothing. Only does it in the kitchen.

Not sure where on the internet I found this years ago. May be nice for the story of a pup in training!

The turning in one direction in flyball is something you check out with your dog early on. Most, but not all dogs, will show a natural tendency to turn one direction or the other. I normally find that out by rolling a ball straight ahead of the dog and releasing the dog once it has come to a stop. When dog gets to ball, more often than not they will fairly consistently turn either right or left to bring the ball back. That becomes the side of the box we start working the turns on. I have not seen an issue with, for example, my dog turning right (the boxloaders left) off the box, and having switching or rear crossing a dog to take an obsticle to the left. Where you CAN get in trouble in agility is any course that has 2 or 3 jumps that are pretty much on a straight line. In those cases, my primarily flyball dog can get in trouble by taking the jumps too straight and low and knocking a bar or two down in his speed/excitement. Working with pinwheels and serpentines in agility are a good counter to make sure the dog collects at the jump.

Very true. We all will naturally hang more strongly on the words of our vet or our trainer. They all must struggle between their opinions verses what we may hear as professional advice. Tough needle to thread.

Yeah having gone thru this now with Cowboy, who developed it at age 4, and 1 year and 8 months into it, I am conflicted about how I might respond now if another dog of mine has it in the future. History of epilespy / seizures is something I will research heavily and ask very hard questions to a breeder going forward. (No more random farm dog bred puppies, whose parents might be good sheepdogs but whose owners have no clue about pedegree.) Only after the fact I learned that one of Cowboy's litter mates. . .we called him Nero because he was all black. . .found out he had to be put down for seizures before he turned one. If I had a dog and it developed seizures at less than 1 year of age, and I can rule out any environmental toxin, I would most likely put that pup down. This has been hard on Cowboy and the rest of us, is barely in any form of control, once every 14 -16 days is more often than I like. The meds have not altered the frequency and has had bad side effects.

Yes, my dog too is totally hungry and thirsty after a seizure. It must be quite a workout to seize up like that for 90 seconds. You mentioned if I noticed any triggers. I don't think so, seems more like clockwork. I used to think perhaps that abrupt changes in barometric pressure may have been a trigger. Can't seem to corral the data to really see a link. Medical literature does not a correlation between barometric pressure and the onset of migraine headaches in humans.

Melatonin has been very helpful for settling my dog down at night. Which then helps me and my wife get our sleep. I read that a large percentage of seizures happen in the wee hours of the morning. We both have hair trigger sleep patterns now. If Cowboy scratches himself in his crate in the wee hours, I awaken until I know its not a seizure. A lot of people have had good luck with Pheno. We have not yet tried that as our front line med. Only post seizure. Still lots of medicine options and combos we have yet to try.

Yes we were doing Keppra 3xper day 2 x 750mg and 1 x 500mg middays. Are you doing anything immediately following first seizure to break the cluster seizure effect? We were prescribed phenobarbital to avoid that. Luckily Cowboy just has 1 grand mal, then that's it for about 2 weeks. Work on breaking the cluster effect first. What I have learned over the past year is that the seizures likely won't kill Cowboy anytime soon. It's the behavior between the episodes and the side effects of the meds that are the most challenging, at least in our particular case. Being at a Flyball tournament or a agility trial situation tends to delay his scheduled seizure time until a couple days once we are back home. I have also found, once we get the immediate post seizure weirdness under control, Cowboy does better having an active, normal day. So he has had seizures on the morning of a practice day, or just before a trial weekend. We press on, do our best post seizure treatments, and he seems happy to have his jobs to do. This took awhile to calibrate, thus the med tweaks and the alternative approaches. People will freak out if they have not seen epilepsy dogs before. It's sadly quiet common in herding breeds and border collies are notoriously unresponsive to conventional treatments. Have you done a food allergy test? A good idea if not. Also look at cleaners and other household products. So keep fighting, work the clusters, be happy that Keppra agrees with your pup. And keep your pup active and doing the things they love to do. There were a few agility basics I had to re-teach once I got Cowboy stable and back in the game. Rear crosses and rear direction changes were oddly tough. The start line stay needs constant attention. Oddly enough however his weaves improved markedly for no apparent reason. He runs both sports better now then pre-epilepsy. It took awhile. Never lose hope, your dog will surprise you. A seizure lasts a few moments, they don't know what happened. But they want to press on. God love these creatures!

Yes thanks Gentle Lake, I am using the terms incorrectly. Simply trying alternative approachs since the conventional meds did not seem to help but were turning my Cowboy into a basket case. Wish they could have worked. May feel the need to try other medicines down the road. But what we are doing seems to be working well enough for now.