We never how the day is going to go until we get up and count noses — and there are a lot of noses to count. Alayne and I were putting all the dogs outside first thing Tuesday morning when we found one nose wasn't doing so well.
Blind Brody spends the night in a 10' x 10' kennel on the ground floor of the barn (it's heated, insulated, and has a cement floor, so it's not really a "barn") because he doesn't like being crated, and he loves sleeping on his cot there. So just like every morning, I slipped the leash around his neck, he stood up … and then promptly fell off the cot. I was standing right next to him but it happened so fast I couldn't grab him in time.
As I helped him get up, I realized he was struggling to stand and hold himself together. His feet were going all over the place. I finally got him up and walking, but he looked like he was drunk. Egads. Brody has always been one healthy boy, and though he is quite elderly now, we've never had any medical issues with him. So this was quite a shock. I slowly walked him out to the nearby yard, stood by while he did his business, but realized he was getting worse as the minutes were ticking by. I finally had to carry him back inside and lay him down on his cot.
I called our vet clinic in Whitefield to let them know we had a problem and would be bringing Brody in right away. Alayne took the photo above of our employee Kate helping me carry Brody out to the truck on the stretcher. (Note: Kate is not 7' tall and I am not 4' 11", no matter how that photo makes it look — though she is a lot taller than me!)
In this next shot, Kate is petting Brody while she waits for me to come around the other side to pull the stretcher all the way through and into the back of the truck:
Alayne left a few minutes later for the clinc with Brody.
After a day of observation, examination, and tests, our vet Dr. Chris Plumley concluded that Brody was having a type of seizure activity. These are not the usual kind we think of when we hear the word "seizure," where animals go into spasms, paddle their feet, lie on their sides rigidly, foam at the mouth, etc. In Brody's case, these are fairly subtle and they occur while he's sitting or lying perfectly still. He will begin panting, turn his head side to side in a rythmic motion, and "check out" for a brief period. The main effect seems to be on his coordination, which is driven by where the focus of the seizure activity is in his brain.
I picked up Brody yesterday afternoon, and we started him on phenobarbitol to control the seizures. We had a dramatic turnaround overnight — this morning he was able to walk out with me on his own, stand without falling, and walk all the way back inside. He is still not 100% stable — he looks a tad wobbly — but what a big difference from Tuesday morning. We're going to see how he does once he gets a full load of phenobarbitol in his system and then decide what other steps to take. But for now, we're very pleased at his initial response to the treatment.
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Still 2nd place — but it's too close for comfort! Contest ends December 19th!
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It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000. So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals! Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!
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