Seizures in dogs can be scary to watch and seem to last forever. Seizures cause involuntary contractions of muscles due to the sudden and excessive firing of nerves in the brain. How a seizure looks in dogs can vary from dog to dog. Signs can range from falling over to one side, padding of all limbs, teeth chattering, foaming at the mouth, barking or vocalizations, urinating, and/or defecating. Some dogs will have focal seizures that cause abnormal muscle movements in one group of muscles such as facial twitching. Clients commonly call veterinary hospitals wondering about dog seizures and what to do after.
First, let’s talk about the components of a seizure. This will help you understand what to expect and what to do after a seizure.
There are three phases of a dog seizure:
Aura Phase. The first phase of a seizure is the Aura phase. Some dogs have this and others don’t. Certain signs of an impending seizure may be evident, such as restlessness, whining, shaking, salivation, wandering, hiding or some dogs will seek affection. These signs may persist from seconds to days in duration and may or may not be apparent to you. Some dogs will run to you or seem “needy” just prior to a seizure.
Ictal Phase. During the ictal phase of a seizure, the actual seizure occurs. The seizure may last from seconds or minutes. The typical generalized seizure looks like this: your dog falls on his side and begins paddling and chomping his jaws. Some owners will notice dog teeth chattering. They may drool, foam at the mouth, urinate and move their bowels. They may bark or vocalize. Dogs are unaware of their surroundings during this time.
Post-ictial Phase. This phase of a seizure occurs immediately after the seizure. Dogs will appear confused and disoriented and may wander or pace. Some dogs will be temporarily blind and may run into objects. The typical post ictal dog will wander around aimlessly, be unsteady on their feet, may stumble over to their water dish and overdrink and/or overeat, drool, and seem generally confused. This phase may last a few minutes to hours.
What To Do and NOT to Do if Your Dog Has a Seizure
Clients commonly want to know what do and what not to do if a dog has a seizure. Seizures can be really scary and often seem to last forever when it is only a few minutes. Clients commonly ask if their dog will die from a seizure. Learn more about the risk of death in Can a Dog Die From a Seizure?
In general, the recommendations on what to do when your pet is having a seizure are:
Don’t panic. Even though it is really scary, understand that your dog is unconscious and not in pain. He is not aware that he is seizing. He is not aware you are there and may react in fear, including to bite.
Be safe. Pets do not swallow their tongues. Do NOT put your hand or any other object in your dogs’ mouth. This is how many pet owners get bit.
Remove kids and pets. Keep children and other pets (both cats and dogs) away from seizing pets. They are often scared and their reactions can be unpredictable. There have been reports of attacks to both seizing dogs and people during this stressful and confusing time to the other household pets.
Time the seizure. Look at your watch and time the seizure. Seizures often seem like they are taking forever but may only be seconds.
Protect your pet. Seizuring pets can thrash and hurt themselves. Protect your dog from water, stairs, and sharp objects. We generally recommend pulling your dog gently toward the center of the room by the back legs. Many dogs may urinate or defecate. If you have a towel handy, place this under their back end.
Observe the seizure. Notice how your pet behaves and moves during the seizure. Is there padding of all legs or just the front? Is there chomping? Foaming? Does your dog urinate or defecate?
Comfort your pet. Stay with your dog but away from his/her mouth. You may calm your dog by speaking softly and petting your dog.
Be ready to go. If the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes, call your veterinarian or veterinary emergency clinic immediately. If you have any questions – call your vet. They can help guide you on if you should come in or if any treatments are recommended.
What to Do After a Dog Seizures
The period after the seizure is called the post-ictal period. This can last from minutes to hours. Typically dogs are disoriented, often lethargic, with inappropriate behavior such as stumbling, walking into walls, overdrinking at the water bowl.
What do you do after a dog seizure?
The best thing you can do is after a seizure is protect your pet. Block access to stairs and water such as swimming pools, ponds, and lakes. Because your dog is unsteady on his feet, he can easily fall down stairs. Allow access only to a room with no sharp objects.
If your dog will lie still, comfort them with soothing words and a petting. If your dog is anxious, he may not want to lay still. Do not hold him down as this can create more stress.
Take your dog out only on a leash for the next several hours to monitor for additional abnormalities such as additional seizures, stumbling, vomiting, diarrhea, and/or lethargy.
Start a seizure log. Document the seizure including the time of day and length of seizure. This will help your vet eventually determine if seizure medications are recommended.
Your dog should slowly go back to normal over minutes to hours. Once he is acting normal, you can allow access to stairs, food and the outdoors. If your dog continues to seizures, has a second seizure, please contact your veterinarian or local veterinary emergency clinic.
When Your Seizure Dog Should See Your Veterinarian
Your dog should see a veterinarian if any of the following occur:
Any Seizures that lasts longer than 5 minutes
When there are more than three seizures in a 24 hour time period
Seizures that begin before your pet has completely recovered from the previous seizure
Your dog does not recover from the seizure within 6 hours
If your dog also has additional symptoms such as not eating, vomiting, lethargy, trouble breathing, weakness, any sign of bleeding or diarrhea
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Seizures typically last approximately one to two minutes, although prolonged seizures can occur and require treatment. Once the seizure has ended, the dog will have a prolonged post-ictal recovery period, lasting up to 24 hours depending on the individual dog.
If your dog does experience multiple seizures, contact an emergency vet. More often than not, your dog will recover from the seizure and be back to his normal, happy self. Some dogs recover immediately. Generally, recovery time from a seizure is anywhere from a few minutes to a full day.
After the seizure ends, dogs often experience post-seizure signs. These can differ but can include restlessness, weakness, disorientation, panting, hyperactivity, fatigue, and even unprovoked aggression. These signs can last anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours.
The postictal state is the altered state of consciousness after an epileptic seizure. It usually lasts between 5 and 30 minutes, but sometimes longer in the case of larger or more severe seizures, and is characterized by drowsiness, confusion, nausea, hypertension, headache or migraine, and other disorienting symptoms.
phase: After the seizure, many dogs exhibit a postictal phase characterized by disorientation. This may last minutes to hours. The most commonly reported signs are behavior changes, prolonged sleepiness, confusion, transient blindness, and eating voraciously.
Food that causes seizures. According to the ASPCA, caffeine, dark chocolate, mushrooms, theobromine, ethanol, and xylitol can cause your dog's seizures. Theobromine is what makes chocolate toxic to dogs.
There are many causes of seizures. Idiopathic epilepsy, the most common cause of seizures in the dog, is an inherited disorder, but its exact cause is unknown. Other causes include liver disease, kidney failure, brain tumors, brain trauma, and toxins.
That said, seizures can be a serious health concern and even short seizures could cause brain damage. If your dog suffers a seizure that continues for more than 30 minutes serious permanent brain damage could result.
Does my dog need medication? Currently, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine recommends starting anti-seizure medication if there is/are: A mass or lesion in the brain or history of brain disease or injury. Seizures longer than five minutes or three or more seizures within a 24-hour-period.
Reducing stress and limiting changes to your dog's environment can help to prevent seizures, as stress is known to 'trigger' seizures. Feeding your dog a healthy diet, keeping an eye on their blood sugar and getting them checked regularly by your daytime vet will also come in handy.
It is accepted that dogs with epilepsy may have a shorter survival time, estimated between 2.07 and 2.3 years, where poor seizure control and high initial seizure frequency are associated with shorter survival times (Packer et al., 2018).
In animals that experience night seizures, administering melatonin (the naturally-occurring chemical released by the brain to induce sleep) can help. If a dog has diabetes or is hypoglycemic, a teaspoon of honey once or twice a day, depending on frequency or severity of seizures, is suggested.
Your dog should slowly go back to normal over minutes to hours. Once he is acting normal, you can allow access to stairs, food and the outdoors. If your dog continues to seizures, has a second seizure, please contact your veterinarian or local veterinary emergency clinic.
, as implied by their name, are dogs that can sense and notify their human companions of an oncoming seizure. This alerting behavior has been reported to occur several seconds to 45 minutes or more before the onset of the seizure.
In both capsule and tincture form, many natural over-the-counter Western herbs — including milk thistle, valerian, and oat straw — are used to treat seizures. Milk thistle is often recommended by holistic veterinarians to be used in conjunction with phenobarbital.
While bananas do have beneficial properties for dogs, they are also high in sugar, so should be fed in moderation. A medium-sized banana contains around 14 grams of sugar. If your dog has diabetes, epilepsy, or needs to lose weight, they should stay away from bananas, as this can be detrimental to their health.
Your dog is most likely to suffer from seizures if he or she is a Belgian Tervuren, Shetland sheepdog, beagle, Labrador retriever, golden retriever, keeshond, or vizsla. Other breeds more prone to seizures include the Finnish spitz, Bernese mountain dog, Irish wolfhound, and English springer spaniel.
The clinical signs in the puppies included fever, lethargy, inappetence, vomiting, hemorrhagic diarrhea, ataxia, and seizures. The animals died 2 days after the onset of clinical signs.
Can separation anxiety cause seizures? According to VCA Hospitals, seizures can occur when there is a change in brain activity. These are usually times of excitement or feeding. If your dog has already been diagnosed with seizures, anxiety can be a trigger.
While it may be on the rare side, seizures can occur in dehydrated dogs. This usually only occurs in dogs that are experiencing significant fluid loss or organ damage as a result of their dehydration, but it is still a potential symptom that we should always be aware of as pet parents.
Behavioral factors like fear or anxiety, defensive aggression, and abnormal perception greatly increased in dogs left untreated for epilepsy, suggesting that there is an association between these factors and the seizure episodes (4).
Common side effects in dogs include anxiety, agitation, lethargy, or sedation when therapy is started, and increased thirst, urination, and appetite or elevated liver enzymes on bloodwork are possible. Side effects such as incoordination may indicate a dose that is too high.
A seizure that lasts longer than 5 minutes, or having more than 1 seizure within a 5 minutes period, without returning to a normal level of consciousness between episodes is called status epilepticus. This is a medical emergency that may lead to permanent brain damage or death.
It's important to not let a diagnosis of epilepsy rule your and your pet's life. Your pet can be left alone. You can go to work or the store without your dog!
Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder seen in dogs, and has been estimated to affect approximately 0.75% of the canine population3. The term epilepsy refers to a heterogeneous disease that is characterized by the presence of recurrent, unprovoked seizures resulting from an abnormality of the brain.
A seizure gives your dog's muscles a workout that is equivalent to running a marathon, so an affected dog may wake up ravenously hungry and dehydrated.
Since there is no cure for epilepsy in dogs, treatment with anti-epileptic drugs (AED) will be focused on reducing the severity and frequency of your dog's seizures without causing unacceptable side effects. This approach is successful in approximately 15-30% of dogs.
Dog seizures can be caused by trauma, exposure to toxins, brain tumors, genetic abnormalities, issues with the dog's blood or organs, or a number of other reasons. Other times, seizures may sometimes occur for unknown reasons – called idiopathic.
#5: Coconut Oil Can Reduce Seizures in Dogs with Epilepsy
In another NIH study, dogs with epilepsy were fed coconut oil daily with their food, for a three month period, and the results were astonishing[*]. The dogs they studied had fewer seizures, and two of the dogs became seizure-free.
Speak in low, comforting tones to your dog. Some owners even try putting on soft, gentle music for their dogs after a seizure. As long as you don't play anything too loudly, this is fine. However, your dog may appreciate it more if you just let him come back to normal without adding distractions around him, too.
That said, seizures can be a serious health concern and even short seizures could cause brain damage. If your dog suffers a seizure that continues for more than 30 minutes serious permanent brain damage could result.
Your dog should slowly go back to normal over minutes to hours. Once he is acting normal, you can allow access to stairs, food and the outdoors. If your dog continues to seizures, has a second seizure, please contact your veterinarian or local veterinary emergency clinic.
Is a pet seizure painful? Pets have no awareness of pain while seizing because of the enormous amount of electrochemical activity occurring in the brain, and because they're unconscious or semiconscious. Although your pet may whine, meow, or bark during a seizure, this has nothing to do with feeling pain.
Does my dog need medication? Currently, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine recommends starting anti-seizure medication if there is/are: A mass or lesion in the brain or history of brain disease or injury. Seizures longer than five minutes or three or more seizures within a 24-hour-period.
It is accepted that dogs with epilepsy may have a shorter survival time, estimated between 2.07 and 2.3 years, where poor seizure control and high initial seizure frequency are associated with shorter survival times (Packer et al., 2018).
Common anticonvulsants include phenobarbital and levetiracetam (Keppra). Phenobarbital can take up to 2 weeks to take effect. Your vet may prescribe higher doses in the first 24 hours so your dog gets the medication's benefits faster.
A series of pioneering research studies from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) into dogs with epilepsy have revealed that: Dogs with epilepsy find it harder to obey commands, are slower to learn new tricks, have spatial memory deficits and are easily distracted.
In animals that experience night seizures, administering melatonin (the naturally-occurring chemical released by the brain to induce sleep) can help. If a dog has diabetes or is hypoglycemic, a teaspoon of honey once or twice a day, depending on frequency or severity of seizures, is suggested.
In both capsule and tincture form, many natural over-the-counter Western herbs — including milk thistle, valerian, and oat straw — are used to treat seizures. Milk thistle is often recommended by holistic veterinarians to be used in conjunction with phenobarbital.
Dogs can detect epileptic seizures up to 45 minutes before they occur. In a study in Scientific Reports, researchers revealed that dogs can detect seizures through smell. In some cases, the pooches were 100% accurate in picking up the odor of a seizure.
Your dog is most likely to suffer from seizures if he or she is a Belgian Tervuren, Shetland sheepdog, beagle, Labrador retriever, golden retriever, keeshond, or vizsla. Other breeds more prone to seizures include the Finnish spitz, Bernese mountain dog, Irish wolfhound, and English springer spaniel.
A seizure gives your dog's muscles a workout that is equivalent to running a marathon, so an affected dog may wake up ravenously hungry and dehydrated.
Can separation anxiety cause seizures? According to VCA Hospitals, seizures can occur when there is a change in brain activity. These are usually times of excitement or feeding. If your dog has already been diagnosed with seizures, anxiety can be a trigger.
Introduction: My name is Edwin Metz, I am a fair, energetic, helpful, brave, outstanding, nice, helpful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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