How to calm my dog down?

Charlie1986

Can anyone suggest a way to calm my dog down. He's been crying for food since 10am, even after his food he's still crying for it and running up and down, barking at me and pulling the door mat up. I know it's because of his new tablets but this has been going on for 3 weeks now! I took him to the vet before christmas but he just said it was something I would now have to put up with. Seriously though I don't think me or my dog can put up with 11 hours + of this each day.
He's asleep on my fluffy dressing gown at the min as this is the only thing that seems to settle him. He has me up at 4 am every morning wanting more food. I just need some ideas until Monday of what to do, i'm hardly getting any sleep and he seems miserable and quite stressed out. I haven't been able to take him out today because of the snow, he would have me over . Even when he has been out, it makes no difference to how he is behaving.

foreign_correspondent

hmm I suppose if it to do with meds, you meed to talk to the vet - is he on steroids? I wonder if there are any alternative meds that would have less impact on his appetite?

Charlie1986

No, he has epilepsy and is on Epiphen and KBR. It's the KBR that is the new one and is affecting him. Hopefully I will get him in to see another vet at the practice on Monday as the other one we saw just told me I had to put up with it.:o

slummymummyof3

What about trying a bone?

There_Goes_Trouble

With a lot of these types of drugs things do improve as the body adjusts to it. Perhaps you need to go back to the vets practice but maybe see a different vet, sometimes a different vet will give you a more sympathetic approach and be inclined to help you solve the issue rather than just tell you to get used to it, which isn't very helpful really!! Was your dog not coping with just the epiphen alone? Would it not be possible to drop the KBR and adjust the epiphen dose to find a level that suits him? I'm not a vet so don't do anything on my advice, I'm just trying to give you a few ideas to take back to the vet having had quite a bit of contact with epileptic dogs in the past.

If you google 'canine epilepsy' you'll find the uk site (I can't post links yet) www. canine epilepsy support .co .uk (remove the spaces) and www. canine epilepsy .com which might help, and also google 'potassium bromide' (KBR) for more info.

Charlie1986

There_Goes_Trouble wrote: »

With a lot of these types of drugs things do improve as the body adjusts to it. Perhaps you need to go back to the vets practice but maybe see a different vet, sometimes a different vet will give you a more sympathetic approach and be inclined to help you solve the issue rather than just tell you to get used to it, which isn't very helpful really!! Was your dog not coping with just the epiphen alone? Would it not be possible to drop the KBR and adjust the epiphen dose to find a level that suits him? I'm not a vet so don't do anything on my advice, I'm just trying to give you a few ideas to take back to the vet having had quite a bit of contact with epileptic dogs in the past.

If you google 'canine epilepsy' you'll find the uk site (I can't post links yet) www. canine epilepsy support .co .uk (remove the spaces) and www. canine epilepsy .com which might help, and also google 'potassium bromide' (KBR) for more info.

He had a blood test which showed there wasn't enough Epiphen in his blood but we couldn't increase the Epiphen as when we did this before it literally knocked him out. The vet did say to drop the KBR by half a tablet (which we did). I was advised to put him on to a low calorie diet so I changed it too Burns High Oats, i'm wondering if this has anything to do with it. I'm not sure what other food to try though, all the vet had was purina and iiams . Thank you for the links to the website I will have a look at them. I guess it's just trial and error and it doesn't help with him loosing weight and being on the tablets as we keep having to adjust them.

Regarding the bone, I tried that and got it thrown at my feet and he trotted off in a sulk to show me where his food was kept :rolleyes:

There_Goes_Trouble

Changing his food may have upset the balance a bit, especially if it happened at the same time as changing the medication, I can't post links here yet (still a newbie!!) so you need to remove the spaces, go to 'canine epilepsy information' then scroll down to the bit about 'common drug treatments' and there's some info there about KBR, says the diet should be kept consistant.

www . nichols - online. co. uk

KVet

Did they put him on the KBR because he was still having seizures? There are other options out there - another anti-epileptic drug is called Keppra - fairly expensive but can work well in some dogs refractory to Phenobarb. Worth a try if he is insured.

syorkshirelass

I feed my dogs with Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, raw meats eggs, google BARF. They are really fit and healthy. I have researched raw food and have found that many petfoods are creating illness' in our dogs.
I would stop the dried stuff and look to introducing a raw diet.

There_Goes_Trouble

I'm neither for or against BARF as I don't know enough about it, but I would just add that if you research it and decide to try it, do the diet change very very slowly under veterinary advice because diet changes could affect the way your dog absorbs his medication, which would alter the phenobarb levels in his system which could upset the epilepsy....

Charlie1986

Morning everyone, had a much better night last night (Thank goodness). He didn't wake me up until 6am . He was put on the KBR because his Phenobarbital weren't in the theraputic range. Though he had only had 1 seizure in 5 months. He's had Epilepsy for approx 3 years now but I still feel fairly new too all this. I just trust my vet and do what he says but I have that 'feeling' about these new tablets. I'm not sure about the BARF diet as I read he has to have fairly low protein? I will ask the vet tommorow when I ring them. He's sleeping at the moment, seems all his activity yesterday has worn him out :rolleyes: