Re: neurological signs in Elkhound

emma o'connor — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:34:32 GMT

Hi mark Thanks very much for your input. It's much appreciated. We will keep a close eye on the situation and see if things continue to develop. The owner so far has wanted to take a wait and see approach but just keen to find out if any obvious conditions within the breed itself, and I have failed to find anything on my literature searches. Emma

Re: neurological signs in Elkhound

Mark Lowrie — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:49:56 GMT

Hi Emma,

A video is always helpful to ask for but on this occasion I am not sure the owner has managed to capture what she is describing. There appears a big disparity between what we see on the video and the owner’s description although I appreciate that the owner has not filmed a recent episode and this one is from back in February.

The video she has given you does not really help to determine if this is neurological or not. The licking of lips seems the only obvious signs and this is quite non-specific occurring in all sorts of conditions (neurological and non-neurological), for example in GI disease (e.g. gastro-oeophageal reflux which would then account for the body tremors i.e. pain).

The main thing is that there does not appear to be a loss of awareness, there are no obvious autonomic signs and the episodes last a relatively long time. These things take me away from considering a seizure. Additionally this dog has only had 3 episodes over 12 months without obvious deterioration which means this is a chronic problem with little progression making it less concerning and giving the owner the luxury (particularly when limited on money) of monitoring and trying to get a more representative video (if these episodes have progressed) or simply to await to see if other clinical signs may develop allowing us to determine whether this is more neurological or not.

In short, this could be a seizure but I would not narrow the focus down too much at this stage as signs are vague and not particularly seizure like and possibly not neurological. Sorry I cannot be more specific.