Seizures

We think Indie has had some kind of seizure.
Unfortunately hubby and I did not see it happen. We were out and our teenage son and his friend were home playing on the XBox when Indie (GSD), who was lying quite quietly beside them' suddenly started having some kind of fit.
This was very distressing for the boys. We found some footage on You Tube and my son says it's exactly how Indie's was. Indie was fine within 20 minutes of the seizure. We were home very quickly and he seems fine albeit panting alot and a bit clingy.
Someone out there must have experience of this. Any advice? Should we call the emergency vet or wait until Monday? It's all very worrying. Indie is 3 next week.

I don't think there is a lot the vet can do after a first fit. You can note down time and length and describe it before the boys forget. Then I'd go to your own vet unless he has another one.

Have you changed his food at all?

rune

No changes to food or anything really. I will call the vet on Monday and get him checked out

Just in case he has another, it's best to put off any bright lights and loud music/tv, whilst he's fitting as they can make the fit worse. Once he's come round he may pace about, you just have to allow him to do this until he's calmed down.
Hope he's ok

Thanks....we think he may have had another today. I will be calling the Vet tomorrow.

Aww, i am sorry

Hopefully everything will work out ok, at his age it quite possibly is epilepsy, which can be controlled, and he'll still have a normal happy life.

It does sound like idiopathic epilepsy. Do you know his breeder and bloodlines? Sometimes it's hereditary, which is quite common in GSDs. At his age it's more likely than anything else as it's a classic age for it to kick in.

It's a horrible thing to see your beloved dog go through, but like celli says, many dogs with epilepsy can manage it very well on medication. It can be a bit tricky at first getting the dosage right and the dog acclimatising to the drug so being a bit wobbly and tired, but once you've worked through that you'd never know there was anything wrong.

Indie had another seizure in the early hours of this morning which woke me as he was upstairs. It was very frightening to see. This was quite severe as he emptied his bowel and bladder. The worst part was that for a while after he came out of the seizure he was very agressive towards me and I had to move away from him as even just looking at him caused him to growl at me. This passed after about 10 minutes and he then became very clingy and didn't want me out of his sight...talk about extremes!

I have taken him to the Vet this morning and he thinks it is probably epilepsy but he will take some blood tomorrow to rule out anything else.
It's all abit scary and distressing especially as I don't feel able to leave the kids (they are sensible teenagers) in the house alone with Indie now because of the agression.
I'm shattered this morning. I'm at work but worried about the whole thing especially as my husband is not home until the weekend (he is in the Navy) and I'm worried about Indie having another seizure and me not being there.

If it definitely is epilepsy some vets prefer to wait before prescribing medication to see if the seizures become more frequent. Pereg was put on medication just 10 days following her first Grand Mal seizure as she clustered a week later and it took a while with a lot of tweaking of her medication before managing to get reasonable control, but each dog is different.

Yes it is extremely frightening at the beginning, but epilepsy can be controlled, and with regard to leaving your children alone with Indie, you say they are sensible so tell them that if he does have a seizure and you are not there, to just leave him to come out of the seizure and not to try to go near him.

You are right...i'm probably just over-reacting LOL....I need some sleep.