Epilepsy Remedies for Dogs

I read your posts and CONCUR. I have had dogs all my life. Grew up with dogs that made it to 17 yrs. Had a Sheltie that got to 14, I put her down after a stroke. Now have a Sheltie that is coming up on 17 yrs. Let me relay my experience with dog seizures. The pet store ran out of my usual brand of dog food last year, and I picked up a small bag of another well known premium dog food. Within 1 hr my Sheltie had a seizure. She has ALWAYS been hypersensitive and allergic, but usually it meant vomitting up whatever didn't agree, but seizures are the WORST. I am a researcher and I immediately went online and found a great article about Rosemary and how it was NOT good for many dogs. BINGO this temp food had Rosemary...but then my regular dog food started adding it and BINGO another seizure. It is popping up in all kinds of stuff that DIDN'T have it before. Ok, my adorable little girl is aging. she suffers from stiff joints and arthritis. By the way, have had GREAT success using green lipped mussel and boswellia, if we miss a dosage, she doesn't get around well. Found that remedy on a UK post, works for her. But seizures have become the concern, and more frequent. But I can ALWAYS trace it to something she ingested. Canadian bacon from a McD's egg mcmuffin, seizure withing an hour, awful one-nitrates? not sure but won't let that happen again. Trail mix she got into....seizure within 3 hrs, had rosemary extract. The last 6 mths I have been cooking for her as kibble didn't interest her at all. I had tried every type I could find w/o rosemary nothing seemed to interest her. My dog is an eater, but is kinda picky. I figure if you get to be 16 yrs old, and your breed usually expires around 12 to 14 yrs, then she deserves whatever makes her happy, ha. I do find that she will have seizures that are WORSE during a full moon. I do find that the ice pack remedy cuts them down faster and the daze afterward is averted. I would NEVER use prescription meds on a dog, EVER, research the whole drug industry- it isn't acting in anyone's best interest. I believe in herbs, and even essential oils. My dog is healthy, bright eyed and her coat is so glossy, she is just having issues with seizures lately, and like others I am trying to make sure she still enjoys a quality life. I don't know if it is just old age causing them now, or if she is deficient. She gets filtered water, organic food. I am going to try the magnesium and coconut oil suggestions. I use dulse flakes as a flavoring and she LOVES those. Pets add so much to our lives you just want to make sure they are well cared for. My mom thought dog food was TRASH, she cooked for our dogs and they never had any health issues and had longevity. I think she KNEW something, ha. But my family lived into their nineties, sickness wasn't in our family, they all expired of old age not disease, most died in their sleep peacefully, they didn't believe in Drs unless you broke a bone. They didn't believe in anyone "practicing" medicine on ya. Most of the top notched vets in my area seem clueless, and expensive, so NO thank ya. When my current sheltie was a puppy she chewed a rock and broke a tooth, a baby tooth, and one of those FINE educated vets told me I had to pay for a tooth extraction. Last time I took her to that vet, because she LOST that tooth naturally, I wasn't about to put her under and have him extract something that was coming out soon anyway. I told him he was a quack and a thief. He later was brought up on pet abuse charges, this was supposedly an exceptional vet-BUNK! GREED motivates more unnecessary procedures-I know, I volunteer in hospitals and hear and see awful stuff.

So please be an advocate for your pet, and choose wisely.

My dog had his first seizure at age 7 and had another one about one year later. Both were unexpected and the vet could not figure it out. After the dog food poisonings I wanted to find an all natural dog food. That dog food caused a seizure in my dog but at the time I did not connect the two. My vet did not either. It wasn't until my Dad stopped by and took some of the food home to try on his dog. Within 3-hours his dog had a seizure. Then I knew to look at food consumption as the cause. I searched the internet all day and finally found something alarming.

The internet stated that there has been an upward swing in dogs and cats both getting seizures. If you look at pet products today, there has been an over whelming amount of ALL NATURAL products and many of them contain ROSEMARY.

I checked the label on that expensive dog food and there it was... ROSEMARY. I then racked my brain to figure out why my dog had a seizure the year before. I then remembered that I was on this kick of eating Triscuits with the Olive Oil and Rosemary flavor. I remember giving my dog a few crackers.

When looking back on both seizures that my dog had, there was the same 3-hour window from when the dog consumed food to having the seizure.

I read every single label including people food before I give anything to my dogs. Neither my dog nor my Dad's dog has had a seizure since we both started reading labels. It's been over a year now. And for the record, the two black labs are not related to each other so it wasn't genetics.