One Fine Acre - 2023 4H Steer Project Update

My aunt's dog ( border collie) takes medication for seizures. It has completely changed her personality. Went from a happy go lucky "zipper-head" to a very subdued almost depressed dog.

Hugs to Buddy, it sounds like it was a fairly mild seizure. They're still scary, though.

I had a dog once that had seizures, they were caused by a medication (a known side effect, I learned later). Hers were also fairly mild, and my vet didn't want to put her on meds unless they started happening more than once a month. At first they were a month or two apart, gradually she went longer between seizures until they were pretty rare.

Seizures can be caused by lots of things, sometimes you can figure out the trigger, sometimes you can't. A friend's dog had seizures that were much more severe, and he'd take hours to 'come out of it'. He got on meds and had seizures less often, and he was still a happy and active dog.

Here's hoping Buddy doesn't have any more, or if he does they are mild, and few and far between.

Sorry to hear about Buddy . When we fostered dogs we had 2 here that had seizures, the people that adopted the one started making his meals for him instead of feeding him dog food- they said it made a difference in how often he had a seizure.

I know your bud isn't a collie type but the sire of our Aussie had a session a couple of years ago and they narrowed it down to Ivermectin sensitivity evidently to the wormer they were using on their livestock. We had our Aussie DNA tested and she has the gene also.

My daughters mutt had off feed and behavior issues and they went away after changing their heart worm medicine. I'm getting leary of a lot of these things.

I am so sorry about this. My Gracie (greyhound) had seizures. Low blood sugar triggered them. She was always a picky eater and if she didn't eat well for a few days she would have one. I tried everything to get her to eat but she was just a brat about it. One day she would eagerly eat salmon and sweet potatoes and the next day she would turn her nose up at it. Phenobarbital helped but didn't fix it. After Joey (the other greyhound) she got very depressed and ate almost nothing. She had a bad seizure that caused brain damage, she could barley walk and she quit eating all together. We had to put her down a few days later. Her systems had shut down completely.

We had our annual herd health check, and just got the blood work results back.

Still CAE and Johnnes free !!!!

21 animals all tested and all negative. We also give ours a rabies vaccination, so we did that.

We also did a mineral analysis on a sampling of animals. No deficiencies. But, they are high on iron and somewhat high on potassium. I assume the iron is from our well water. We are going to get it checked.

@Southern by choice
I know you said yours were high on iron, how high were they? Dr. C told us that while ours was high, he has seen higher. Didn't indicate it was an issue. Ours were all around. 15 ppm.

I'd have to go check my records... just re did my files so it means I can't find anything. I will look for them. I can tell you that the tube type can contribute to the higher levels though. The top they want to use is the Royal Blue and whew is it PRICEY! No vet I know, not even Dr C uses them LOL.

YAY! on All Negative!
We have been considering doing the pooled fecal for Johnes but I am not sure it is worth the expense and the blood draws are always negative. What do think?

Found the post from here. Funny, it was faster than me looking for it!
http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/the-importance-of-good-data-data-is-in.25751/page-2#post-334501

note on the one part *
*There is a risk of elevated iron and potassium due to hemolysis.

What were yours? Nevermind LOL you said that.

My iron is a lot higher than yours. Potassium about the same.

OneFineAcre said:

My iron is a lot higher than yours. Potassium about the same.

Click to expand...

I noticed that! WOW!
Friends of ours had the same issue... they ran their water through a 55 gallon drum and used a pool filter... worked fantastic!

We have had to change how we give minerals, we don't do free choice anymore. Our only other alternative is to have our minerals specially made.

The copper is the biggest issue as there is no way to tell if it is being stored or not without the biopsy. NC State was looking at it too, ut it was too much work to keep up with on my end. If you come up with some ideas please share. It is a real issue here, yet it sounds like your iron is even worse. Dr L was concerned about the Molybdenum.

Always something.