A Bad Day

[LOW Lover]

Well it has taken me a week to post this frustrating day but here goes. Opening day of Minnesota pheasants my third born son, two labs and myself went up to North Branch for a morning of pheasant hunting. It was going to be a low key morning, not a lot of expectations, but a relaxing day to warm up to the new season. Twenty minutes into the season my 9 year old lab comes and lays by my feet and looks up at me. He was telling me, I love this gig but I can not do it anymore. He got lymes disease a couple of summers ago and since then has not been the same.

An hour later I hear my 5 year old yellow lab whinning and barking a bit and my son yells over and says, "Dad she is having a seisure!" So I preceed to get over to her and we hold her and she recovers enough to walk out of the field. Daisy has had seisure only while hunting since she has been a puppy, but two years ago, we started to use pro plan power bars and that has helped so that they are non-exsistant. Well Pro plan stopped making them and I used Real Tree on Saturday. Needless to say they did not do the trick. We got back to the sub and rested. We went to another field and I let daisy out for a bit. She preceeded to have another seisure (which was worse yet). She had three more in the next 45 minutes and then went into a coma. I was devastated and so was my son. I drove home, called my son who works at Gander and had him leave work to bring her into the vet. We got there, they rolled out the stretcher, started to hook her up with IV's, told me the cost, I picked myself up off the ground and tried to comfort my boys. The vet gave us no encouraging words, not sure if she would make it. My wife arrives who is a nurse, her and I talked about giving Daisy until late evening and then maybe we would have to put her down. She would not respond to pain, eyes would not respond to light, we were hopeless. We said our good byes to her not knowing if she would make it through the evening. As I petted her one last time, I said a short prayer, asking the creator God to heal her. We left and went home.

When I got home I did a quick internet search on seisures on dogs, some research I read stated that it can take two days for a dog to recover and wake up from a coma. So we decided that we would return to the vet that evening and bring her home to be in a coma and see what happens and make a decision on Monday whether to put her down at that time. Well, my wife and two of my sons went to get her at 10:00pm to bring her home. When they got there, they could hear the vet techs in the back yelling for joy and a dog barking. It was daisy, she woke up and was just like new. No brain damage, had an appetite, and was reading to come home.

Miracales can happen even with our pets. The boys are happy to have her home, even though we have made a decision not to hunt her anymore. I have two great house dogs, my gun may remain silent this year, but I am thankful for a creator who assists us in our time of need.

LOW

Side note: Thanks to a good friend, one of my boys is enjoying a fantastic ND hunting trip this weekend.

[Powerstroke]

WHat a fantastic ending to a horrible day. Its so hard having sick pets and having that feeling of hopelessness. I'm glad your dogs are ok and I'm sure you'll get to hunt this year. It won't be the same without your dogs, but at least hey will be at home waiting for you.

[jigging-matt]

Good to hear that your day ended the way it did. Just got done dealing with a sick pet. Had to put my dog of 14 years down about a week ago, So I know how you feel. Once again glad to hear your dogs are ok.

[porterhouse]

Good for your family!!!! Dogs are so important to us and our familys.

Brian

[setterguy]

That must have been one long night. My 11 year old has just recently started to show signs of not being himself in the field. I will need some serious therapy when he goes.

[The_Duckslayer]

LOW glad to hear that the "kids" recovered and are back home. I know the feeling when they can no longer hunt with you. I just lost my Lil Black dog this month to old age and other issues. Though they may not hunt with you any longer they will still be your truest friends for years to come. N Joy the days that you will be able to spend with them. Take care and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo

[Mike89]

I'm so happy for you, we lost a good dog to seisures too. it's a big loss.

Mike

[LOW Lover]

Thanks fellas for the great words of encouragement. It is good to have both the dogs home and doing well. I have talked to the vet and they are not sure what causes these seisures. I am not sure if she will ever hunt again, but the vet said do not rule it out for next fall. We will have to see. She said we could put her on some phena barbatol (sp) which would probably make the seisures stop while we are hunting. My boys and I have decided just to wait on that decision until next summer, we value the dogs companionship over pushing the issue this fall.

On a side note, a good friend of mine took my third born son pheasant and duck hunting out in ND over MEA. They had a wonderful time, lots of birds and a great time. Thanks Dave!!!!!

LOW

[MNDeerhunter]

LOW Lover-

I feel your pain. I had to retire my lab at 6 years old. She had a “seizure” one hot afternoon while throwing her retrieving dummy in the back yard. Her back legs just gave out and she was dragging her rear end and she had a dazed look in her eye. I immediately picked her up and told the wife that I was taking her to the emergency vet. I turned the air on in the truck and she stuck he nose in the cool vent. By the time we reached the emergency vet, she had snapped out of it. I took her to her regular vet the following Monday and he said that he wasn’t sure what caused it. He suggested “exploratory” surgery…which generally means explore how deep my wallet can go. It happened one more time that fall, and we started to look for answers.

Long story short, my buddy’s sister was a vet tech, whose boss (the vet) had the same thing happen to her lab. U of M did research on it, and they termed what she had was “exercise induced collapse”. Basically meaning that the heart wasn’t strong enough to pump oxygenated blood the rear part of her body, and he body would seize. That is what my dog had, and forced her into early retirement since they said that the seizures would occur most frequently and easier the more she has.

Hope everything turns out well for you.

[311Hemi]

Unfortunatley EIC "exercise intolerance (or induced) and colapse" becoming more prevalent in labs and there is currenlty no way to test if a dog has EIC. For the most part from what I have read it's ruling out many other possiblities which can be costly to say the least.

One this you will notice and something to watch for if you suspect your dog may have EIC is there rear end will become very loose or wobbly as the colapse sets in. If you can watch for this you can slow your dog down. If the rear end stops moving and they are dragging it stop them immidiatly and let them rest. I am not here to point out if something is wrong, but from all my reasearch (reading and vets) EIC is not related to the dog having a small heart and a lack of oxygen to the rear end (so no offense Deerhunter).

I have recently experienced what I expect might have been an EIC episode so I have been doing a lot of reading and talking to various vets.

There are a few really good sites that explain EIC and one of them is from the U of Saskatchean. Do a search and that site explains the condition very well.

On a good note we made it through duck hunting and pheansant hunting this fall with no issues.

Deerhunter....how long has your pup not been hunting? I assumed they ruled out hypoglycemia (blood sugar) and any thyroid conditions (if you know what they tested for)?

[MNDeerhunter]

Quote:

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Deerhunter....how long has your pup not been hunting? I assumed they ruled out hypoglycemia (blood sugar) and any thyroid conditions (if you know what they tested for)?

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She turned 11 in May so she has been out for 5+ years. She is basically a housedog now, and a companion for the wife and kids when dad is away hunting. They did some testing and ruled out hypoglycemia and thyroid because everything tested normal.

The reason they (U of M) thought that it might be low oxygen is because her tongue would turn a really light grey, and stay that way until she recovered.

I will have to read up on the Canadians, eh, findings and see what they have to say. I have kind of put it out of my mind since I’ve retired her, but I might have to bone up.

Thanks a bunch.