Sorry to be a downer but me & my girlfriend have had the worst weekend imaginable. Our 11 year old bull mastiff/staffy Tilly sadly had to be put down yesterday at 8:45AM. If you don’t want to read about this skip down past this part here === and read what I put after as it is important.
She seemed a very healthy, happy dog & had never had any medical problems for 9 years. Then at around 11PM the prior day after being let out for a wee she started having seizures. She was drooling uncontrollably, her eyes were rolling up & side to side without rest & she kept trying to stand or walk but was repeatedly falling over onto her left side. We got onto after hours vets & carried her to the car & we all went to see what was up with her. When we got there she was still fitting but not as aggressively as she had little energy left in her. The vet used a torch on her eyes & she wasn’t responding to light, not could she feel either of her left legs. After numerous injections to calm her down & a painful hour in the vets she could feel her left side again & was responding to light, sniffing biscuits & trying to lick us. The vet advised we take her home & bring her in straight away the next day, regardless. Throughout the hours of 3-7 she was more like herself, she never stopped laying on her side but used her right legs to slowly shift herself closer to my girlfriends hand to get a cuddle off of her, whilst watching me all night. I was getting much more hopeful. Unfortunately, when I woke back up at 8 she wasn’t moving at all only her eyes, which had began swaying as it did before. We had to carry her back to the car & take her into the vets & were seen straight away. Sadly the vet said she had brain damage & she wouldn’t stop, the kindest thing to do is to let her sleep. I’m 22 & have never had to grieve before & I feel broken, I’m sure most of you can understand. It happened out of nowhere.
Anyway, I hope I can help some people with their little dog family members with this. I’m going to go through everything I learned to help prevent & protect your dog, because as I said, this happened to us without warning & in under 10 hours of this started we had lost her.
Symptoms can be loss of control of their body, falling over etc. They may begin losing breathe & drooling excessively. Their eyes may begin acting weird causing temporary blindness. They may also poo & urinate whilst fitting.
If it begins, the best thing to do is lay them down. Make sure the lights are off & there are no loud noises so switch the TV off too. Once they are laid down in a dark, quiet room please call your vets immediately & tell them what is happening. Talk calmly to them & stroke them but not near the head as I’ve heard they may try to bite in the confusion. Your dog won’t be able to walk so you will need to carry them, be gentle. Your dog may start & stop fitting in quick succession (clusters) if so they are in fear of overheating so have water nearby to cool their paws.
I would advise everybody gets their dog a blood test as the vet advised us to do, unfortunately we couldn’t because of all the medicine she had but maybe if we’d had it checked before they could have predicted it. Some seizures can be a once in a lifetime thing, something that needs reoccurring medicine or something that can’t be helped. They can occur at any age but I think it is more common in younger dogs under 6, however the older they get the list of possible caused gets longer.
I don’t want to seem like I’m begging for upvotes, however if this gets more attention I’m sure I could save at least one dogs life. Maybe if I’d known all this, I could have saved Tilly, I’m not sure but it’s too late for that now. I hope I can help someone else through what I learned.
Thank you for your time.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/afkqnd/please_read_all_dog_owners_unexpected_killer/
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