Canine epilepsy - Greyhound Zoom

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Part 2 of the story started yesterday: Halo from hell

A dog cone collar, also known as an Elizabethan collar or a space collar, comes in a variety of sizes and colours. Some have padded neck areas for extra comfort, some are fully padded for extra status, and you can buy special stickers so the kids can get involved.

There is no name, model, style, colour or decoration, however, which has ever won approval from a single dog or cat.

Late on the first day of Scratchy's one-month sentence of wearing a cone collar, he negotiated his way out the door into the backyard. He took a deep-breath of sweet evening air foully scented with plastic from his cone collar, and decided to walk around the side of the house. This narrow alley, barely wide enough for two greyhounds to pass each other, is Scratchy's favourite toilet spot.

I don't know how long he stood there, unable to turn around because of the huge cone on his head, before I found him and helped him out. That's when I decided to find an alternative to the cone, which was disturbing me almost as much as it was clearly disturbing Scratchy.

We have in our household a pair of ladies silk pajamas. Of the softest texture, and the softest sky blue, they were bought many years ago in Hong Kong's famous Stanley Market, and served their mistress faithfully. I found them in the laundry, in the rag bag.

I cut about six inches off a trouser leg. I slipped this over Scratchy's wounded leg, wrapped the top end of the silk tightly just above the knee, and secured it with a liberal application of medical gauze.

We now had a covered wound, meaning Scratchy couldn't lick it, but open at the bottom, which means air could get in.

He's been wearing it for two days now and, while he's had a little nibble at the gauze, he hasn't been able to undo it, and he hasn't been able to get at the wound, which has dried out and is healing nicely. Scratchy shook his leg a few times initially when walking, but has become used to it. He even wore his blue silk leg skirt to the park this morning, and acted unfazed and indifferent when Daisy sniggered.

The plastic cone collar, meanwhile, sits discarded in a corner of the shed. I hope I never see it again.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Canine health

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Scratchy's diary: raw and sore

January 4th 2010 05:28

I woke up in a funny place recently. No familiar faces, no Short Black and no Bosses. Just some cats in cages and the smell of disinfectant. There were some people I didn't know, some dressed in green and some dressed in white, but they were no more generous than Big Boss when it came to supplying food.

The thing is, I woke up sore. All my muscles were stiff, like I'd been running 40 kilometres instead of 400 metres. And I had raw, sore patches on my front legs, like I'd been banging them on something.

The green and white people talked about epilepsy whenever they were near me. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe it's like being hit by a car. The people put lots of ointments and bandages on my legs, which was stupid because it made them hard to lick better. But the bandages are gone now and the legs are healing quickly.

They are a lot better than they they look in these pictures taken yesterday. I'm not sure why Big Boss got the camera out. He said something about being in a funny position around the cushion. I don't see what's so funny about it. I was just giving it a fluff before having a nap.

Anyway, I want to wish you all a speedy and waggy new year. Oh, and watch your knees. Or you might end up in a strange place surrounded by cats and strangers.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Dog Diaries, Scratchy

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The end of an epilepsy tale

January 2nd 2010 00:56

Every day, as the evening shadows lengthen, as the birds settle into their nests and families everywhere gather after their day of work, Scratchy chases his tail.

It is one of the two things he does to remind me that it is dinner time. The other is to stand and stare in my direction with a direct, concentrated gaze that says, "I am in danger of passing out with hunger, my blood sugar levels are low, my bone marrow is screaming for sustenance and the clock on the wall is 37 minutes slow."

When that doesn't work, he gets bored and chases his tail. It's a desultory chase, as if to indicate that he could do better if only he had the energy which comes with a large dinner, and it rarely lasts more than a minute. Then he returns to staring at me, with occasional, meaningful glances at the clock.

Scratchy hasn't chased his tail for almost two weeks, however, since his massive epilepsy scare. During attacks, the muscles seize, and after multiple attacks, those muscles are very sore indeed. This is bad enough for normal dogs, but in the physiology of a greyhound, there is little which isn't muscle.

It is with much delight, therefore, that I can report that, this morning, Scratchy chased his tail. I assume he was practicing for a return to his habitual late afternoon tail-chasing regime. Either that, or the clock on the wall really is very wrong.

But I choose to believe that he chased his tail just because he found, after two weeks of recuperation, that he felt good enough to do something spontaneously energetic. Whatever the reason, if he can chase his tail, I can now pronounce him full recovered.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Canine health

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Nightmare

December 31st 2009 02:30

We nearly lost Scratchy. It happened more than a week ago and if I haven't written about it yet it's because it was one of the more traumatic things I have seen. It was also all my fault.

Scratchy is epileptic. He had his first seizure just weeks after we got him about two years ago, and he has been on medication ever since. Every morning and evening he bears with us, in his perennially good-natured way, as we prise his jaws open and drop tablets into the back of his throat.

The medication doesn't prevent seizures, but it limits them. It takes time to get the medication levels right — it varies a lot between individuals — and we had only recently reached a stage where Scratchy was having a fit on an average of every six weeks or so. That, said the vet, is about the best one can hope for.

And then, one evening recently, I forgot to give my big brindle his tablets.

I woke about 2.30am to a shuddering noise. It's a noise I recognised, caused by Scratchy's spasming legs kicking the sofa or a coffee table or a wall. I went out to find him, to make sure he wasn't hurting himself.

Scratchy's first epileptic episodes after we got him came in groups. He would have two, three or even four attacks spread over up to 24 hours. They are called cluster attacks. Once we got him on medication there were, gratefully, no more cluster attacks.

You never get used to watching an epileptic seizure. It's hideous, and it never gets less hideous no matter how many times you watch it. It must be worse — far worse — in people. The only solace is that the sufferers aren't in pain. And, in Scratchy's case, I had the solace that, after a fit, there would be a quiet few weeks before the next one.

But not the other night.

After the first seizure, Scratchy appeared to start the normal recovery process. After 10 minutes or so of heavy breathing, he slowly and unsteadily got to his feet and started walking around. You can almost watch, through his eyes, the fog clearing from his brain as the circuitry returns to normal.

The other night Scratchy walked outside, turned left and left again into a narrow area down the side of our house, and then collapsed and had a second seizure. I watched helplessly — in this narrow space I couldn't stop his legs hitting the side of the house. Then he had a third seizure. And then a fourth.

Somewhere about this time the realisation came to me that I hadn't given him his tablets the previous evening. It was now almost 3am, and Scratchy couldn't stop fitting. One would finish, and while he was gasping for a few breaths, another would start. My wife and I watched in despair.

I got his tablets and tried to get some into him between fits. But he was panting rapidly, violently, and every time I showed a tablet into his mouth, it shot back out on a wave of hot breath. It was one of the most frustratingly futile things I have done in my life.

All I could think was that this couldn't go on forever. But my wife was thinking a little more clearly. As the number of consecutive fits reached perhaps 10, she found and rang an emergency vet number. The danger, she was told, was overheating. The firm recommendation, they said, was to bring him to the veterinary hospital.

Scratchy weighs close to 40 kilograms, and he was wedged in a tight space. As the next seizure ended, however, I picked him up and carried him through the house and out to the car. I don't really understand how I did it. It is possible that I didn't breathe while moving him. After I put him carefully in the car, I almost collapsed. I had to stand with hands on knees and gasp for breath, as if I had just run a sprint race.

Whether by coincidence or somehow triggered by being moved, Scratchy's seizures stopped. At a guess, he had 15 fits, with a gap of no more than a few seconds between the second one and the final one.

At the hospital they gave him Valium, they took his temperature (41.7 degrees — normal is 39 degrees), they gave him an intravenous shot of his epilepsy medication, and then they wheeled him away for an ice bath.

He was in hospital for two days, and it was another several days before he was, miraculously it seems to me, cleared of organ and muscle damage. Now, it even looks like we can rule out brain damage.

Four days ago he managed to get up on the sofa on his own, and two days ago we took him for a gentle first walk.

We have our boy back, and I won't ever again forget to give him his medication.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Canine health

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Pets, in sickness and in health

February 27th 2009 11:29

I have had some bad luck with dogs.

Murphy the German shepherd, a big, arrogant, obstinate dog who was incredibly handsome and knew it, had sensitive skin. All his life we tried to find out what caused him to lose hair, scratch constantly and suffer regular ear infections, but our money bought little except the knowledge that there are two general categories of skin allergies: food and environment.

If your pet has the first, you have some hope of discovering, by a process of elimination, what it is they are allergic to. If it is the second, it could be anything from your perfume to the fibres in your sofa, and pins in haystacks will be easy to find by comparison.

Murphy, of course, had the second.

Gentle Jumbo

The story of Jumbo, another German shepherd, was told in an earlier Zoomies post (link). Jumbo was even bigger than Murphy but he was a gentle giant. He had lived all his life outdoors as a guard dog, but it was probably a good thing he was never called upon to protect his patch of property from an intruder because I doubt he would have known what to do.

Jumbo was dumped by his owner when he got too old to even look like a guard dog, and I adopted him, aged 13.

Gentle Jumbo got to see the inside of a home, along with its warmth and comfortable sleeping places, for the first time. And promptly developed severe skin allergies to something in the environment in my flat.

dog dogs greyhound greyhounds pet pets brindle

Scratchy

Scratchy is a greyhound of aristocratic breeding. Well, any greyhound bred from a famous Australian racing mother and a famous Irish racing father, with the semen from the latter introduced to the former after being frozen and flown, probably first class, between the two countries, surely qualifies as aristocratic.

Scratchy (yes, he has a sister named Itchy, for those who watch The Simpsons) was one of a litter of eight and he was both larger than average and slower than average. Scratchy was retired early and came to live with us and, I am pleased to report, two years later, there is no sign of a skin allergy.

Instead, he has epilepsy, and watching the violence of his periodic seizures is every bit as distressing as watching first Murphy and then Jumbo try to deal with permanent skin irritations.

So, you see, I have had some bad luck with dogs.

But nothing is perfect and taking responsibility for a pet means exactly that, in sickness and in health.

It might have been cheaper, and it might have been easier, living with Murphy and Jumbo and Scratchy if they had been perfectly healthy dogs, but it wouldn't have been better. It was (is, in Scratchy's case) a privilege living with these beautiful animals, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: German shepherd, Greyhound, Canine epilepsy, Canine health

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Our boy

December 21st 2008 02:16

Our boy's name is Scratchy. His dad was a champion racing greyhound in Ireland and his mum was a champion racing greyhound in Australia. He was one of a litter of eight and his seven brothers and sisters are successful racing greyhounds. Scratchy won one race, but it wasn't a big one. It was in a small country town before a crowd comprising mainly dust and flies. We don't know how many starters there were in the race. Possibly one. Not long after that Scratchy was retired, and then he came to live with us.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Greyhound, Canine epilepsy

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Epilepsy 2

June 21st 2008 17:06

It is almost five weeks since Scratchy suffered three seizures in 30 hours, and the distress of watching him thrash uncontrollably on the floor is beginning to fade. We dare to hope that the attacks in mid-May will not recur.

It is late at night and I am in bed reading. Cindy is in the living room turning off the heating and the lights. Scratchy suddenly goes down and begins fitting. Cindy calls me, and while I watch over him, to make sure that he doesn't hurt himself during his violent exertions, Cindy tries to comfort Daisy, our new, second greyhound, who is wailing and crying, perhaps under the impression that I am hurting Scratchy.
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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Canine epilepsy

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Epilepsy 1

May 16th 2008 11:35

Some studies say as many as 4 per cent of all dogs suffer epilepsy. That is about one in every 25 dogs, so it is not uncommon.

One night, not long after our resolute, unshakable, non-negotiable conviction that Scratchy would sleep outside at night had been sheepishly reversed, I was woken by noise from the living room. It sounded like the dog was playing rugby with the cushions again. "Scratchy!" I barked, and immediately went back to sleep.
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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Canine epilepsy

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