I am so sorry to hear of you loss. I have a huge understanding of your pain & have lived it. A little background for reference. My boy Coco was a Bordeaux cross. My mum & I inherited him when my older brother took his own life. Coco was only two years old when he became ours but he had lived with us since he was a year old. He was a fabulous dog, my brother worked very hard training him to be so beautiful. When my brother died Coco became my best friend & constant shadow. He was a healthy boy up until April 2019 at which point he was almost fourteen years old. Our vet has always commented on how healthy he was & how easily it would be to mistake him for a puppy if it wasn’t for his slightly greying face. He bounced around like a puppy & would get zoomies like a puppy. Had no issues running, jumping ect. His body still had years left in it. In March I was home with my oldest brother when I could hear this continuous noise, I called out to my brother who got up from his bed to investigate. He found my best friend on the floor of my mums bedroom having a seizure, he called me frantically and we having not ever experienced something like it made the mistake of trying to get him up once the seizure had seemingly stopped. What we didn’t know if that sometimes it looks like it’s ended but it hasn’t the dog is still confused, can he death & blind & unable to smell for a while. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Long story short he ended up biting my brother pretty badly on his chin which required a lot of stitches. Once he was back to himself he had no idea he had bitten my brother or what had happened. Our vet said to keep an eye on him and that sometimes in old age the brain can misfire causing a seizure and it could be a one off thing. He also told us due to his age it isn’t possible he had epilepsy. Weeks passed and he didn’t have another episode so we grew hopeful thinking it was a freak one of thing. Then whilst snoozing on my brothers bed one day at the end of April he had another seizure. So we did as our vet had advised if another occurred. We made the room dark, make sure he couldn’t hurt himself & locked him inside to leave him until it was completely over & he was himself again. Our vet explained it’s not unusual for a dog to be aggressive after a seizure even if it’s not on their nature. Which it wasn’t for our boy. After that seizure we decided we had to change our lives because he always had them whilst sleeping we couldn’t risk him having free run of the house anymore or sleeping in bed with me like he always did it broke my heart! Our vet took blood tests to check to infections or illness as kidney issues could cause seizures etc. Meanwhile we retrained our very cleaver boy to sleep in the kitchen with a baby gait keeping him from being able to get out whilst we went upstairs to bed & continued to shower him with love. Our test results came back to say he was fine blood wise. No infection etc. Our vet gave us anti seizure medication but informed us that it wasn’t looking good. He explained that due to nothing showing in his blood, he was pretty sure it was a brain tumour. He explained the medication wouldn’t stop his seizures but it would help to stop them from happening too regularly and should help make them less intense. We got super lucky and I cherish the extra time we got with him thanks to that medication he didn’t have another seizure until the end of June. However he ended up having a different type of seizure. Our vet had told us to look out for signs of personality changes, or lack of co-ordination. And if those things presented themselves or the seizure types changed then we had a hard choice to make. At the end of June I woke up to piece of paper on my bedroom door from my mum that Coco had a seizure in the night she did this so I was prepared when going downstairs that morning as it would mean he had loss control of his bladder & would have wee & poo everywhere. Something he never did in the house ever. By the morning he was fine as if nothing had happened other than being extra hungry and a little more sleepy but his seizure medication made him sleepy and he always reacted this way after a seizure. By lunch time that day he stood up in my living room and was just staring straight through me, I knew something was wrong and then he had a seizure whilst awake and standing up causing him to fall all over the place and crash into our wooden cabinet. It broke every single part of my heart to get up from my sofa and walk out the room leaving him alone when I knew he was hurting one from the seizure and two from smashing into the cabinet. But I had to keep myself safe. That was our last day with him. After that we had to admit we were just being selfish keeping him with us. His whole life had changed, he had gone from patrolling our beds at night keeping us all safe to only being allowed downstairs and confined to a kitchen at night, we could no longer walk him out of fear for him having a seizure whilst out side. It wasn’t fair to keep him even if I’d have given the world to keep him forever. So we said our goodbyes. It was so hard. He wasn’t just a dog, he was family and he was my best friend. He saved my life during my darkest moments and I will forever be greatful that I got so lucky to have such an amazing, loving, obedient, beautiful dog and for him to share his life with me for so many years. We had had dogs before him in our family home but I had been so young I don’t remember them. He was my first real dog and spent my childhood with me into my twenties. What a blessing. But it was definitely a traumatic ending to such a loving relationship. I am sorry you have had to experience it.
it has taken me until this month to finally open my arms to another dog and I have to admit I have found it difficult. Any time the puppy starts dreaming in his sleep I feel myself panic but I have to take deep breaths and remember he isn’t Coco & that he feeds off my energy. I am sending you loads of healing.
Coco’s first seizures were grand mal seizures. His last seizure was a cluster seizure (he had three within 11hrs)
