[PaulieP]

My moms dog is approx 10 years old. Male shitzu. He has lately began having seizures (which all have lasted no more than 15 seconds). We had a blood panel done when they first started and nothing was found so they put him on phenobarbital. The medication did much of nothing. This morning he had 7 seizures within two hours and has had one every three hours thereafter. We have him set up to have a senior blood panel tomorrow.

As far as his history goes he is a pound pup. His eyes have always been glazed over (cataracts) and has always been scared of men (there's no doubt he was abused by his previous owners). Lately he has been drinking and peeing a lot, peeing almost every hour. He is still very alert but after his seizures he is very much out of it. We just read today about giving a dog vanilla ice cream after seizures to help bring his sugar levels back up, which we have begun doing. His eating is still relatively normal.

Hoping maybe someone else has had a similar experience and can shed some light on this.

Thank you.

[Lunareclipse]

We had a saint bernard that had epilepsy. She had cluster seizures just like you described your dog having. Phenobarbital takes a while to work. Weeks, or even months. Some senior dogs develop it. Your vet should take an ex-ray of your dog's head to make sure there isn't any tumors causing the seizures. Our saint bernard would have cluster seizures for days. Make sure you give your dog it's medication at the same time every day and whatever you do, DO NOT MISS A DOSE! Missing a dose of phenobarbital can trigger seizures. Phenobarbital is precessed in the liver, so drinking water and peeing will increase. Make sure your dog has plenty of water down at all times. If it doesn't have plenty of water to flush the drug out, it can get concentrated in the liver and cause liver failure. If your dog quits drinking water and peeing, take it to the vet immediately. If you see blood in your dog's pee, also take it to the vet. If phenobarb doesn't work after a while, your vet may prescribe potassium bromide. Our dog had seizures while she was on the medication. After her seizures were over, we had to re-housetrain her. It was very hard for us and our dog. You need to tell your vet anything that is happening with your dog, even if you think it's not that important.