Did Miller have a seizure?

[Miller]

Hi, I'm new here. Miller is my adorable 5 yo border collie. (will post pic later) Miller just lost his brother, a 12 yo Basset Hound to complications of bloat. Yes, they were complete opposites but Miller especially loved Oscar. Oscar loved Miller too, just not quite as much. Overall, they got along extremely well. So, with grieving over Oscar I go through all the what if's, and that makes me very cautious with Miller. He has always been healthy.

 

So, there is the background. This is what Miller did that I want to talk to other Border Collie owners about. The vet believes it could have been like a leg cramp or his paw fell asleep, because there were no mental symptoms. Needless to say, with just losing Oscar, (2 weeks ago) this scared the crap out of me and my husband. He was lying on the couch beside me and he started stretching then pawing at his face then got off the couch and walked, hopped around fast and funny, like drunklike, and trembled a little, (that could have been from me screaming in a panic, he is scared of EVERYTHING) almost running into the wall, sometimes holding his paw out. It lasted a minute or less. My husband and I massaged his paws (during this minute or less) and he went completely back to normal. Has anyone else had this occur? It is hard to explain, so I hope you can kinda visualize it. I was also wondering if it could be that cramping syndrome, which I have read can be related to diet. My husband had just mixed in the rest of Oscar's food with Miller's, so that makes me wonder. He is now back to eating his own food.

 

Additionally, I want to keep Miller as healthy as possible. What brand food do you recommend for Border Collies? I know I won't make any, barely make my own. And, I have read a liitle about the heartworm and flea preventative, but I don't understand. He takes Interceptor and Advantix or Vectra 3d. Are these ok? Any other general health tips?

[bc4ever]

First of all--welcome!

 

It doesn't sound like a seizure to me, but others with more experience will weigh in I'm sure. Good group of people here. Wonderful resource. They've talked me down off the ledge several times over the years when I thought something was seriously wrong with my guy Scooter!

 

We need pictures of Miller!

Pam

[juliepoudrier]

It's hard to say from your description what exactly was going on. I think I'd just keep this incidence in the back of my mind and see if anything like it happens again. (And if it does, then I'd probably consult the vet at that point.) Trembling *could* be a seizure symptom, but if you were screaming and that scared him, who knows? I know it's hard, but if he has another similar episode, you need to try to remain calm. If it *is* a seizure, your dog will *need* you to be calm. Five is probably at the upper age range for idiopathic epilepsy to show up, but never say never.

 

The first time my youngster had a seizure, I took her to the vet where her bloodwork, etc., came back normal. There was no mistaking that she was seizing when it happened though. At that time, we had several possibilities for causes. I started a journal (just a little calendar minder) so I could make notes of any future seizures, the times and circumstances surrounding them--this is so you can see if there's a pattern to the seizures, which can help you determine a trigger.

 

But really without seeing what happened I would be disinclined to call it a seizure at this point. It is just as likely that he had some sort of cramp and the trembling and nearly running into the wall, etc., were a direct result of your reaction.

 

As for food, there have been numerous threads in this section and the General Discussion section on feeding border collies (or really any dog). You can use the search function and search words like food, feed, or feeding to find those threads. There are lot of opinions out there on what to feed, but in general anything you would buy at the grocery store is not going to be considered a good quality food. My advice is always to buy the best food your budget will allow. To learn how to evaluate foods, go to the Dog Food Project.

 

J.

[jenkshipley]

He was lying on the couch beside me and he started stretching then pawing at his face then got off the couch and walked, hopped around fast and funny, like drunklike, and trembled a little, (that could have been from me screaming in a panic, he is scared of EVERYTHING) almost running into the wall, sometimes holding his paw out. It lasted a minute or less. My husband and I massaged his paws (during this minute or less) and he went completely back to normal. Has anyone else had this occur? It is hard to explain, so I hope you can kinda visualize it. I was also wondering if it could be that cramping syndrome, which I have read can be related to diet. My husband had just mixed in the rest of Oscar's food with Miller's, so that makes me wonder. He is now back to eating his own food.

 

Additionally, I want to keep Miller as healthy as possible. What brand food do you recommend for Border Collies? I know I won't make any, barely make my own. And, I have read a liitle about the heartworm and flea preventative, but I don't understand. He takes Interceptor and Advantix or Vectra 3d. Are these ok? Any other general health tips?

 

I would suggest running a chem panel to make sure his levels are all normal to rule out anything that way. Has he had Interceptor or an application of Advantix in the last week or two prior to the incident. Personally, I think the safest Flea/Tick preventative you can use is Frontline. You want a food without chemical preservatives, where the first one or two ingredients are meat, not meat by products and made by a reputable company. Depending on what you have available to you - Origen and Fromm are very good, Blue Organics is decent, Merrick is okay.

 

This could have been a seizure, but it could also not have been. I would watch him carefully for awhile and, as I said, a chem panel wouldn't hurt.

 

Best,

Jen

 

Flute AAD, AX, OAJ, OAC, OGC, NAJ - semi-retired

ADCH Enna TM - Silver, SACH, GCH, SCH, JCH, RCH, MX, MXJ - rescued champion

Rising Sun's Hot to the Touch - aka: Fever - retired due to epilepsy

Ignited's Molten Rush, aka: Lava - BC puppy in training

Kasi EAC,EGC,EJC, OA,OAJ - (1992-2007)

[Miller]

Is a chem panel a blood test? No, no advantix or interceptor recently. The only thing different was Oscar's sr. food mixed in with his.

I use advantix and vectra, bc they are the only ones that protect against mosquitoes. But, if frontline is safer I may switch. What about interceptor?

 

me='jenkshipley' date='Feb 4 2010, 02:51 PM' post='338820']

I would suggest running a chem panel to make sure his levels are all normal to rule out anything that way. Has he had Interceptor or an application of Advantix in the last week or two prior to the incident. Personally, I think the safest Flea/Tick preventative you can use is Frontline. You want a food without chemical preservatives, where the first one or two ingredients are meat, not meat by products and made by a reputable company. Depending on what you have available to you - Origen and Fromm are very good, Blue Organics is decent, Merrick is okay.

 

This could have been a seizure, but it could also not have been. I would watch him carefully for awhile and, as I said, a chem panel wouldn't hurt.

 

Best,

Jen

 

Flute AAD, AX, OAJ, OAC, OGC, NAJ - semi-retired

ADCH Enna TM - Silver, SACH, GCH, SCH, JCH, RCH, MX, MXJ - rescued champion

Rising Sun's Hot to the Touch - aka: Fever - retired due to epilepsy

Ignited's Molten Rush, aka: Lava - BC puppy in training

Kasi EAC,EGC,EJC, OA,OAJ - (1992-2007)

[juliepoudrier]

Miller,

I think most reactions to flea and tick preventives happen fairly quickly after application of the chemical. If he hasn't been treated recently, I wouldn't worry about the Advantix being the cause. As for relative safety, I use Advantix because it's what *works* for me. Frontline doesn't work for me and hasn't for a while (and you'll get all sorts of opinions on what flea and tick preventives work). So, even if Frontline is "safer" (and I don't know where that information is coming from), it's not if it doesn't work properly, because then your dog is exposed to fleas, mosquitoes, and possible tick-borne disease. All treatments you give your dog require you to weigh the benefits and the risks and decide if the benefit is worth any associated risks.

 

As for Interceptor, I have used it in the past and have never heard it related to seizures in dogs (but read on). I use ivermectin on my dogs, and after keeping a journal for my dog with seizures, thought that perhaps there was a correlation between her seizures and the ivermectin, because the seizures always occurred within 5 days of my giving them ivermectin (and one month I was 5 days late and her seizure was 5 days late). So I took her off the ivermectin for a few months and she still had seizures, though not on quite as regular a schedule. My conclusion: the ivermectin probably wasn't a trigger for her seizures, though I probably won't put her back on it, just to be safe. The reason for this long story is because when I was discussing the situation with my vet, he suggested I switch her to Interceptor. The active chemical in Interceptor is in the same class of drugs as ivermectin (avermectins), and it has been shown that dogs with the mdr1-1delta gene (the mutation that causes sensitivity to ivermectin in collies and some other breeds) are generally sensitive to all drugs in that chemical class (though not at the prophylactic doses used for HW prevention). I mentioned this to my vet and he said that Interceptor (milbemycin oxime) did not cross the blood-brain barrier as easily as Ivermectin does and that's why he thought it would be safe for Phoebe if in fact the ivermectin was the trigger for her seizures. I didn't go back and research that because at that point I was planning to leave her off all HW preventives for the time being (it was fall and the risk of HW infection was greatly reduced), since I was still trying to establish whether there was a connection between her seizures and ivermectin. But anyway, at least my vet seemed to think that Interceptor was *safer* for a dog whose seizures might have been triggered by ivermectin.

 

Phoebe has a littermate who also has seizures. His owner believes that his trigger for seizures is additives in commercial dog foods. He is also on medication though, so there's no way to really definitively establish if the additives were the trigger. That said, he would have a seizure within in an hour of being fed, and at one point got into a bag of dog food (after having been taken off commercial foods) and had a seizure shortly thereafter, so it *is* possible that if Miller had a seizure that something in Oscar's food might have triggered it.

 

As for the chem panel (blood profile), I don't think it would show you much this long after the event. If it happens again, I would suggest running him to the vet then, and getting the blood drawn. When Phoebe had her first seizure, I took her to the vet immediately (though it takes half an hour to get there). She was perfectly normal when we got there, but we went ahead and drew blood anyway, just in case and to have some baseline values. Her chem panel showed nothing significant. But, if seizures are called by some organic condition then bloodwork might point to a cause.

 

But really one event doesn't a history of seizures make, so you pretty much just have to keep an eye on things and see if it happens again. As I noted before, there's no way to tell if it was a seizure from your description, especially if you being upset is enough to cause Miller to tremble. When I took Phoebe to the vet that first time, that's pretty much the advice I was given: wait and watch.

 

J.

[jenkshipley]

Is a chem panel a blood test? No, no advantix or interceptor recently. The only thing different was Oscar's sr. food mixed in with his.

I use advantix and vectra, bc they are the only ones that protect against mosquitoes. But, if frontline is safer I may switch. What about interceptor?

me='jenkshipley' date='Feb 4 2010, 02:51 PM' post='338820']

 

 

Yes, same thing. You don't need to protect against mosquitos if you are also using Interceptor. You just need to protect against ticks and fleas. My veterinarian advises against Advantix. Interceptor is fine. Since you have stopped feeding him the other food, just keep an eye on him. If you see anything similar again, I would see your vet.

 

Best,

Jen

 

Flute AAD, AX, OAJ, OAC, OGC, NAJ - semi-retired

ADCH Enna TM - Silver, SACH, GCH, SCH, JCH, RCH, MX, MXJ - rescued champion

Rising Sun's Hot to the Touch - aka: Fever - retired due to epilepsy

Ignited's Molten Rush, aka: Lava - BC puppy in training

Kasi EAC,EGC,EJC, OA,OAJ - (1992-2007)

[juliepoudrier]

Jen,

Why does your vet advise against Advantix? Just curious.

 

J.

[jenkshipley]

Why does your vet advise against Advantix? Just curious.

 

I am not sure. I never asked. I don't use chemical based preventatives anyway. My dog's neurologist, however, recommends Frontline if one is going to be used. I have used both a homeopathic vet and a holistic vet, neither recommend the use of Advantix.

[jenkshipley]

Why does your vet advise against Advantix? Just curious.

 

Googling reactions to Advantix in dogs provides quite a bit of interesting reading. Although that can be said about quite a few of the conventional flea and tick preventatives.

[juliepoudrier]

Interesting. I have a holistic vet in addition to my regular vet and none have spoken against it. It's moot anyway, since Frontline stopped working for me several years ago and I had to switch to something because of the tick problem. I stayed away from Advantix for a long time because I also have cats, but given the problems I was having with Frontline, my vet finally convinced me I wouldn't kill my cats if I switched....

 

J.

[jenkshipley]

It's moot anyway, since Frontline stopped working for me several years ago and I had to switch to something because of the tick problem. I stayed away from Advantix for a long time because I also have cats, but given the problems I was having with Frontline, my vet finally convinced me I wouldn't kill my cats if I switched....

 

You aren't the first person I have heard say that Frontline has stopped working. My mom using Frontline on her BC/Lab mix and we have pulled engorged deer ticks off of him. I managed to eradicate the tick population in my yard. I used insecticide once and then followed that up with a series of things. Dish soap and water sprayed on the yard and about 20 feet outside of the fenced portion of my property surrounding the yard, bagging and removing the cuttings every time I mow the grass and a cleared perimeter around the fence about 6 foot wide.

 

That doesn't do anything to protect the dogs when I am off my property so I have really limited the areas where I take them and I use natural alternatives which work to some extent.

 

Jen

[Miller]

Thanks guys! What about vectra 3d? That's a new one, that my mom's vet recommended, and Miller has used and had no issues. It is a flea/tick/mosquitoe preventative like advantix. My mom has an austrailian shepherd mix. What vaccines do Border Collies have issues with? Miller gets the dental vaccine, and no he hasn't had it lately. I believe it helps. He hasn't had to have a dental, yet.

[juliepoudrier]

Dental vaccine? Never heard of such a thing. I don't know that border collies as a rule have issues with any particular vaccines. I vaccinate minimally, mainly because I don't think there's a need for repeated vaccinations, but follow the law on rabies vaccines.

 

J.

[Maralynn]

Dental vaccine? Never heard of such a thing. I don't know that border collies as a rule have issues with any particular vaccines. I vaccinate minimally, mainly because I don't think there's a need for repeated vaccinations, but follow the law on rabies vaccines.

 

J.

 

I just googled it pfizer animal health apparently testing is still inconclusive on the effectiveness of the vaccine. They got FDA approval to sell it due to how common dental health issues are in dogs. Here is a freelance article on the subject that was published by the Chicago Dental Society.

[juliepoudrier]

Thanks Maralynn. It doesn't sound like something I'll be tossing money at....

 

J.