My poor, poor puppy. The beautiful (and pretty clueless) Bayliss has started having seizures again. It just breaks my heart.

Although my vet disagrees, I know exactly what’s causing them. Bayliss can’t go 15 minutes without a fresh ear infection. I’ve spent over a thousand dollars on the dog in the past year for ear infections alone. It doesn’t matter how well-trimmed his cocker ears are, or how well we clean them. Miss a few days on the flush-clean-and-trim routine, and he’s walking around deaf again.

In June we experienced our first seizure. It was awful. Bayliss dove around the living room like he was scared to death, then flopped on his side, legs out, shaking and drooling. I thought it was the end - and what a terrible way to go. I scooped him up and held onto him and cried. I had no idea what was going on. After a few minutes of this, he relaxed and started coming to. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The next night, at exactly the same time, he had another one - this one worse than the first.

We took him to the vet the next morning, and she cleaned out his ears and gave him an injection of antibiotics. She wasn’t convinced the two were related, but the only thing we could treat was the ear infection. She gave us phenobarbital for him, but the more I read about it, the less I liked it. Luckily, keeping his ears clean and getting him over the infection seemed to clear up the seizures.

Then yesterday we came home to a mess. Dogs lose control of all their bodily functions during a seizure, and we just knew that’s what had happened. He had another last evening, and then another this morning, Our vet appointment wasn’t til the afternoon, and I was on vacation, so I left him alone for a little while and went out. When I came home, the floor lamp in our den was on its side, broken into pieces. Bay was hiding out under our bed, and I knew we’d had the fourth one in 24 hours.

The vet confirmed that he did, in fact, have another ear infection. He’s on strong antibiotics now, and I’m hopeful that clearing up this infection will stop the seizures. Just in case, though, I started him on the phenobarbital. It’s no fun, but at least he’ll be seizure-free until we can get the ear infection cleared up. I know my puppy is in his golden years (10) but I hope we have several more years with him that don’t include nasty ear infections and grand mal seizures.

Happy birthday to Justin, by the way. There’s nothing a night at Chuck E. Cheese can’t mend.

Distracted,
michelle