The end might be near for Doyle’s dog

If you are a regular listener to the show, you know that my family has a dog, a miniature schnauzer named Sparky. I’ve never gotten along with the dog, but my wife and children love him.

On Sunday afternoon, out of nowhere, he started having convulsions. His body was shaking and spasming, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he was foaming at the mouth. I have never experienced anything like this before, so I didn’t know what to do. My wife cradled him, petting him and talking reassuringly to him until the convulsion ended. This happened at 3:55 pm. I know what time it was because my wife called our vet, the only one Sparky has dealt with in New Jersey.

The vet’s office has Sunday hours, but they close at 4. We live very close to the vet, less than 5 or 6 minutes. My wife explained that the dog was convulsing and foaming at the mouth and that we could probably be there before they closed. The receptionist put her on hold for a moment and then came back and told her not to bring the dog to them, as they were preparing to close. The receptionist gave her the name of a 24 hour facility, which is a little more than a half hour away. We decided to wait and see if he had another seizure, which he did, but as the afternoon went on, they seemed to diminish in intensity.

After a rather erratic night, we took him to another local vet who gave him some Valium to calm him down. He was there for four hours without having another seizure. The vet told us there are a number of reasons our 10 year old dog might have seizures: epilepsy, brain tumor, poison, a bump on the head, kidney damage, and others. They drew some blood and sent it out for testing to see if there is a metabolic reason for the seizures, but we don’t have the results left.

We’ve taken him home now, but he just isn’t himself. He isn’t moving much, but when he does, he just walks around in circles. We’ll probably have to take him back to the vet in order to get a final diagnosis, but things don’t look good for him now.