A few days ago, some of you know that my little dog, Betsy, had a Grand Mal seizure. She is four years old. She had never had a seizure before. She had never been ill before. It was totally out of the blue. It lasted 6.5 minutes, which according to my vet, is not a good thing.
I rushed Betsy to the nearest vet. On the advice of the vet, she had complete blood work. Betsy, you see, is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. They have some genetic issues. The vet was worried about her heart. She passed all her blood tests with flying colors. Nothing was wrong.
Right. Nothing was wrong. I saw Betsy have this seizure. SOMETHING was wrong.
To find out what is wrong, or to possibly find out, Betsy will have to see a specialist, but it makes the most sense to try to track down any possible environment causes first. I live in the forest. My previous dog, Eliza, developed pancreatitis from eating parts of a dead bird that was in my large fenced in back yard. She, subsequently, had chronic pancreatitis the rest of her life. The first thing I thought of was that something was in the back yard that Betsy could have eaten. It made me feel like I was reliving a nightmare.
It is simply not possible to keep things out of a forested yard. Critters are in that yard every night. Birds are there. Insects are there. It is winter and nothing is growing, but birds drop berries, some of which could be poisonous. Betsy will eat anything! Taking inventory of all this made me feel helpless.
There was another possibility. Something could have bitten Betsy. There are virtually infinite possibilities. Another previous dog was bitten by something. I never knew what but it was a terrible bite. It could have been a snake, probably non-poisonous. It could have been a opossum. I live in the forest! There are other possibilities. He was sick a long time. But, Betsy had no visible bite marks.
But, insects may not leave visible bite marks, at least not on a heavily-coated dog. Then, it struck me. A spider! We have a number of poisonous spiders here like the brown recluse spider.
Sigh…..the bottom line is that we don’t know and may never know. Alternatively, there may be a veterinary neurologist in Betsy’s future. Keep your fingers crossed for her. She’s the sweetest dog and best companion in the world! #JusJoJan #amwriting #amblogging #writing #cavalierkingcharles
The Write Scribe 