About the third or fourth month after we adopted Quincey, he had his first seizure. We did not know at the time he was epileptic, so needless to say when he had his first episode it scared us to death! After doing quite a bit of research, we learned that is is somewhat common with Golden Retrievers. How do you know when your dog is having a seizure? You’ll definitely notice. When Quincey has an episode, his entire body goes stiff (arms and legs straight out), he does not blink his eyes, and his jaw is locked down tight causing him to drool profusely. It is so sad, but the best thing to do is just pet them and keep them calm. When they come out of it they will be confused, so the more calm and peaceful you can keep them the better.
We immediately took Quincey into our vet, and he suggested that before we put him on medication (since it is so hard on their liver), to document and track his seizures. If they happened more than once a month, medication would be needed. For the next several months, Quincey averaged about one seizure every 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes they would only last a minute, but he had a couple of really bad ones that lasted about 5 minutes. One time he even got really sick after having one, it was so sad.
Brad had a pet photographer suggest bananas to us to help with seizures. She said her dog used to have seizures all of the time and ever since she started feeding it bananas they had stopped. I was a little skeptical, but we decided to give it a try. We have been feeding Quincey 1/2 a banana in his food every morning for the last 5 months, and he hasn’t had a seizure since! Bananas are the miracle fruit for our family. We buy big packs at Costco, peel and freeze them since fresh bananas never last that long. Quincey is a happy boy 🙂
Does your dog get seizures? We really want to see if this works as well for others as it does for us. Here are some great resources on learning more about canine epilepsy: