Is your older dog suddenly disoriented, unbalanced, and confused? A good friend of mine gave me a call today to wish me happy birthday. While catching up he told me about his thirteen year old German Shepherd. Apparently while he was on vacation in Hawaii his German Shepherd became quite ill. Fortunately, their dog was diagnosed and treated for a disease know as Canine Vestibular Disease also known as Old Dog Vestibular Symptom.
What is Canine Vestibular Disease?
Some commons symptoms of this disease are leaning toward one side, shaking of the head, and walking around in circles. Vestibular means a problem with the connections between inner/middle ear and brain causing ataxia. Dogs with ataxia stand with their limbs braced, they walk with difficulty and have a “drunk” type of motion because they have lost their sense of balance. When the vestibular nerve, which travels from the inner ear to the brain, malfunctions. It disrupts the animal’s sense of balance and orientation.
Can My Dog be Misdiagnosed?
It has been suggested that there is a correlation between old dog vestibular syndrome and hypothyroidism so blood work should be done to rule out this problem. The ears should be thoroughly examined because the same symptoms can result from a severe ear mite infection. Also certain types of antibiotics such as streptomycin and gentomicin can cause vestibular syndrome. Please note that a serious inner/middle ear infection—which can occur without the customary smelly ear—has the same severe and frightening symptoms.
Because of the sudden nature of this disease it can often be misdiagnosed as a stroke.
What Should I do?
As in the case of my friend’s dog after a couple weeks the animal learned to compensate for old dog vestibular syndrome and began moving around the house like a normal dog. Try and keep your dogs feet firmly on the ground and eyes facing the horizon to help the dog gain his/her orientation. This disease is not fatal and recovery just requires patience and tender loving care.
Story about our Lab Border Collie Mix
Back to my story…fortunately for my friend his dog received the proper diagnosis. After rushing back from Hawaii they noticed their dog’s head was cocked to the side, but after two weeks he was back to normal. Now that I think back to our old family dog, a lab border collie mix, I think that he may have suffered a similar affliction. We assumed he had a stroke (also the assumption of our vet) and he was disoriented, unbalanced, and confused. He walked around in circles, but we think this was due to part of his body being partially paralyzed. Hmmm….but then again he did recover in about two weeks…
I’d love to hear what you have to say. Have you ever encountered this situation with your dog? Is your dog currently experiencing being disoriented, unbalanced, and confused? If so, your dog may have Canine Vestibular Disease. Perhaps your dog is sick with other symptoms…if your dog is gagging and coughing then take a look at my article My Dog’s Got Kennel Cough…Now What?
Fortunately my two dogs are four and two years old so hopefully I won’t have to deal with Canine Vestibular Disease any time soon (if at all). My third dog is 1 years old and is in guide dog training (actually he’s technically not my dog he belongs to the guide dog school).
Parts of this information were summarized from http://www.peoriahs.org/vestibular.html
Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian and would advise that anytime you notice symptoms in your dogs health you should take him to your local veterinarian for treatment.
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Ok well this is kinda a long story to tell, but I need your guy’s help on this. I have a 7 year old dog not sure what breed she is though and her name is Lady. I have had her since she has 8 weeks old and never had experienced anyting like this before. About 3 years ago she had a seizure that lasted about 2 minutes and she was fine afterwards, then about another year after the first seizure she had another one and then the next year again another one. Then she didnt have one again until just recently about 2 months ago and this one was really bad she would start shaking breathing really hard and just this really deep stare, so I took her in to the vet and the vet wanted to do some blood work , mean while before we knew the results of her blood work the vet wanted to put her on some epilepsey medicine which is called Phenobarbital which is fine, but then the blood work came back and the vet said the blood work was perfect. Ok glad to hear that, but something has to be wrong with her besides the seizures because now she sometimes shakes, now losing her balance when she walks and putting her head straight out in front of her like it hurts her, but she never whines or acts like she is in pain. She just now started losing her balance when she walks. I have to admit I have not been giving her the epilepsy meds cuz I do not think that this is what it is and it can damage her liver eventually, so I do not want to giv eit to her if she does not need it. I have been giving it to her now for about 2 days and still having the same problems. The vet just keeps saying to keep a close eye on her and if it gttes worse bring her in, but I can not stand to watch my dog go through this anymore……I am crying non stop becasue I do not know what is wrong with her and there is nothing that I can do for my dog and its killing me to see her like this. She is now wanting to be by herself and she is now not sleeping with me in my bed like she used to she sleeps under the bed now and I do not know what to do. I believe that it is a slipped disk or something, but I dont know for sure.. She is very off balance and she is still eating and drinking as of right now.
I have done some research about this and I can find is stuff about inner ear, strokes, etc…..there could be a lot of things going on, but I thought I could get some suggestions from you guys to see what you think. I would really appreciate the feed back if anyone can help. I am in desprite need right now. The next thing I think I am going to have done with Lady is to have x-rays, but if they come back normal what else can I do or what is causing this problem??? Thank you so much for your time and hopefully you can help me out. Leslie and Lady!!!!!
Hi, Leslie…
Your dog’s symptoms are similar to, but not quite the same as those of CVD. For one thing, it’s almost always an “old dog” disorder. I think the vet was right to strongly consider the early seizures she suffered. But usually, with epilepsy, the seizures would become more frequent with time. Certainly your vet checked Lady’s heart and other vitals, and eliminated the possibility of a stroke? Is she overweight? How about an ear infection or mites? Did the doc look at her ears or clean them for you? Is your dog of the type that might be prone to a disc problem…long body, short legs, etc? Could she have been poisoned? Do you live where there are snakes/spiders that may have gotten to her without you knowing, and left her with neurological symptoms? Well, that’s about all I can think of. Good luck to you.
I have a dog that has seizures. One or two when he was a couple of years old, then didn’t have them for years then started with them all the time. I’m not sure if what you are describing is what my dog has. Have the vet check your dog’s ears. If you want to rule out the disk find a vet chiropractor. We have one in our town that has cured pets of several close friends of mine. The vet I take mine to now is also a holistic/homeopathic vet.
I have a male chiahuahua Who has suddenly become very ill. My dogs name is Guss he was given to me in the summer of 2008 I don’t know how old he is but sure he is old because my father in law said he can tell by his teeth, anyways yesterday he was walking around and would run in to things and didn’t bark at people like he always used to so that’s when I noticed something was wrong he has been losing weight and is very skinny the last few weeks I have been putting him in a very large pin outside to get fresh air so I figured he was just being stubborn but then last night it got worse he won’t eat unless I force him to and won’t move he just lays on his side I tried last night to get him to walk and stand but he just falls over on to his side I didn’t think he was gonna make it through the night but he did he also doesn’t get up to potty He just pees On himself I’m very worried about him and don’t know what to do or what’s wrong I’m only 22 living on my own and can’t afford to take him to the vet but if its very serious I will have no other choice I love him he is like my son someone please give me some advice
Hi, Nicole…
Little did I know that so many folks would find this website looking for help for their sick dogs. The best thing you can do is to READ THE REMARKS HERE on this blog! Anything you need to know is here. Some people have used Dramamine (an over-the-counter motion sickness med.) successfully to stop the dizziness and disorientation (remember, your little friend is really tiny, so I’d call a vet and ask how much they suggest you give Guss. If the symptoms last more than a couple of weeks, the prognosis is not so good. It seems that CVD has usually cleared-up after a few weeks. I came here looking for help for my little dog, but she didn’t make it. I really don’t think she had CVD. She was adopted, so she may have been older than they told me she was, and she may have died of natural causes. I’ll never know. I miss her, but I have adopted another little spitfire.
Penny, thanks so much I will try the meds! I don’t want to lose him. There is one ting I wanna ask and I may sound stupid for asking but do you (or anyone else on here) think its CVD or something else. I just wanna make sure I’m doing everything I can like I said before I don’t have the money to take him to t/e vet I’m only 22 living on my own I also didn’t mention that I have a 17 month old if I didn’t have him in my life I would move back home and take Guss to the vet but I can’t! I’ve also heard of karo On their gums will help bring up their sugar if they can’t/won’t eat has anyone ever heard that it works I don’t wanna torture him if it won’t work
thanks for your help
Your Guss is very cute. Read as much of this blog as you can! Most of the advice here won’t hurt your dog and may give you some clue as to his problem. The Karo syrup won’t hurt him, but I’m not sure why you want to use it. If you have a thermometer, take his temp. It should be about 100 to 101 degrees. Look online for animal rescue folks in your area. You may find good people at a specific organization like a Chihuahua Rescue. Sometimes they keep a fund to help people who are unable to pay a vet bill. They may come to your rescue…or at least be able to advise you as to your options. Good luck
I have some good news on Guss, he has made a complete turn around he is eating and can stand and walk just fine now! He is back to his normal playful self! Thanks everyone for your help!
nicole,
did you do something to help guss or did he just start eating and doing better? did you find out what it was?i was just curious -i have an older american eskimo who after getting his leg tangled in a blanket stopped eating and seemed unable to have a bowl movement. he started walking fine after a few days on the leg but then started with the eating and bowl problems-he did start walkiing in cirlces and kinda wandered around the yard in a way he never has. i know is old but not sure if this is something more. He shows no sign of pain-just tired.
thanks,joe
Great news about Guss, Nicole!!!
God bless!
Penny
Hi, I have a 3 year Doberman who began bumping into things over a month ago. A few weeks later she fell off the back porch and made me realize something was definitely wrong and she needed to go to the vet. As I waited for the vet to get her weight, she collapsed and had a seizure. When the seizure was over, she was weak but was walking in circles. I left her at the vet that day so they could monitor her, ensuring she wouldn’t have another seizure but if she did she’d have good care. She had an ear infection, but the vet said she thinks she has vestubular disease and to finish the cortico steroid and that everything should resolve in a manner of weeks. it’s been 4 weeks since that first vet visit. After the first week, on a Saterday night, my dog wasn’t eating, walking, barely moving and suddenly looked really bad and wouldn’t cool down. So I took her to a different vet who charged less for afterhour visits. He gave me a weeks worth of medicine to treat her for what he thought was cephalitis? Sorry, I might have misspelled that. He also gave her an IV, and within a few days she seemed better. But toward the end of that week, she still hadn’t improved. So we put her back on the corticosteroid and commited to 3 weeks of it, sine we stopped after a week of it the first time. It’s been 2 weeks, we have one week left of that corticosteroid before it is finished. I have returned to the original vet, without my dog because she doesn’t walk much but when she does, she walks in circles. The vet still insists it might be vestubular disease and to keep up with the treatment. The only other suggestion she has is a possible brain tumor which I would have to go to a neurologist for to get an MRI. I went in to the vet originally thinking that she only had an ear infection and that’s what was causing her uncoordination. Somethin so small has turned out to be an uknown disease or something. With only a week left of this medicine, she looks like she is getting weaker in her hind legs, the circles don’t stop (when she has energy to move), and in the morning when I wake her up in her cage to take her out, she literally has not an ounce of energy before feeding her. Even after food she only has enough energy to try to stand, with my help though (shes 80lbs!). Since the first visit, I have witnessed her to have 2 more what seem like seizures?? One night she began almost running while on the floor?? Doing circles? It seemed like she was hyper or playing, then it didn’t stop and her eyes were dialated. I don’t know what happened, but I finally began holding her down with my boyfriends help as well. She fought and tried to move for an hour and half! The other time it happened was a few days later, at night again, she began doing this spinning on the ground outside, and I realized it was another episode because she hasn’t moved so fast since she was normal. Anyway, she collapsed over that time and pooped as she lay on her side. We picked her up to help her and for a long while held her down to keep her from running her circles or else she’d fall or go run into something. Any ideas or comments I would appreciate, in the meantime, I am preparing myself to put her to sleep soon because she can’t do anything without my help. She can’t even eat out of the left side of the bowl. One side of her body seems like it doesn’t work. She can’t see me coming from her left side, only her right side.
Hi Catherine,
The circling and falling sounds very similar to our dog Katie. You said that she can’t see you coming from the left side. Are her back legs giving out on her? Try tapping her whiskers on both sides to see how she reacts. Also try blowing into her eyes to see if the left side blinks. There is a possibility that it is a brain tumor. She seems quite young for that though and hopefully it is just vestibular and can be cured. For us unfortunately it was a tumor and that was how the vet was able to discern between the two.
Best Wishes
Hello, I read most of the previous comments and I am aware that CVD typically happens to older dogs however my situation deals with a puppy who is 8 months now and his name is DaVinci. It all started about a month ago when I noticed DaVinci had an eye allergy and a sudden ear infection with pinkish ooze on the same side as the eye. He started to tilt his head to the side of the ear infection so i knew I had to take him to the vet the next morning. However when i went the next morning his head tilt was gone so the vet said the ear was swollen and it looks like he had a bug bite which will go away on its own. he gave me drops for the eye infection though. So we treated the eye infection and it looked like it pretty much went away. Then I had to go out of town for a few days so i had to leave DaVinci with friends. My friends called me to tell me that one day after I left DaVinci was not eating and he had a fever and the eye infection came back. They took him to their vet and that vet gave him some shots and eye drops. He seemed to be pretty much better by the time I came back. I noticed he was somewhat unbalanced and that he did not want to eat UNLESS I fed him by hand (which i obviously did). He threw up randomly but just little bits so i though that was weird. This was all one day after i got him back from the friends. Then 2 days after the worst happened. I went to take him for a walk but he would not get up and he loves walks
so i helped him up and then let him walk but he took a few steps and then fell to the one side. He did not wanna use the stairs even though he uses them everyday so i had to carry him downstairs which was so weird cause he knows how to. he just looked like he was scared of them. we got outside and i put him down he peed and then took a couple of steps and fell hard. I though he just slept bad so i tried throwing his ball around so he would run. he wanted to but he always just fell 
i realized that this was not normal so I rushed him to my vet. when he got there he asked me how long has he had the eye twitch for…and the slight head tilt. i said i didnt really notice those details. i just said he seems to walk in circles only to eventually fall. he tried to examine Davinci’s ear but he was in so much pain and started howling and trying to escape. The vet couldnt even examine him. He gave him some antibiotics and some ear drops and said we will try to look at the ear the next day to see whats causing this. The next day his ear was still very painful so the vet had to give him shots to make him sleepy. he had to give him 3 before it worked AND when he was finally asleep the vet started examining the ear with that ear tool and my puppy cried in his sleep cause it hurt so bad. his head tilt was completely sideways over the next few days even though he was on serous antibiotics. After about a week or 2 of antibiotics whatever was wrong with the ear in terms of the infection was gone BUT his head only returned about 80% straight. So now he has a slight head tilt. Is this permanent? Does this mean there’s still something wrong with his ear? Is it some sort of damage? Is there anything I can do, like physical therapy to help straighten his head. I just get reminded of this terrible time in his and my life every time I see that tilt. He is so young, I know he can fight this. Does anyone have any advice?
These are such surprising stories and so sad to hear about all these dog health problems. My dog is older too and I hate that the days are near when he will undoubtedly experience some of the conditions your readers describe. I found myself feeling very bad after reading these blog posts yet I am leaving feeling better informed.
When it comes to dog health issues, my dogs ears always were a problem and that’s about it but it was a huge problem because he had ear infections over and over again. We were always at the vet getting dog ear infections treated and now his hearing is suffering, he basically can’t hear anymore. It is very sad to see. Anyway, we resolved the dogs ear infection symptoms by using regular dog ear treatment with all natural non prescription dog ear drops. Dr Dogs Ear Oil is the name and it’s keeping the dogs ear infections from coming back so we’re thankful.
You can find out more about that if it’s a problem with sore ears, http://drdogs247.com
Wish you all the very best with your dogs health. Be sure to watch those dogs ears because flare ups of ear infections can cause terrible pain and discomfort. I just had an ear infection and found myself at urgent care center just last night. It hurts like heck!! Keep an eye on your dogs ears along with any other health issues.
to your dogs health and wellness!
My 12 year old yellow lab (Roxy) was sitting at the bottom of the stairs today and shaking. She does that when she has done something wrong. I didn’t pay close attendtion until I was about to leave and could not get her to get up so I could go to a doctors appointment. Her head was shaking from side and her eyes were doing the same thing. She was confused and did not respond when her name was spoken. She had pooped in the living room and was still shaking. I had to to to my doctors appointment so I called my husband to contact my youngest son and ask him to go to the house because I thought Roxy has a stroke and I would need his assitance getting her to the vet. I would return after my doctors appointment. She was worse when I returned. I feared she had had a stroke and would have to be put down. The vet said she had geriatric vertigo and gsave her predisone and and antibiotic. He said she should be better in a few days. If not I am to bring her back. He ran a blood test and will have the results tomorrow. I would hate to loose this animal. She is the sweet thing. From what I have read from others on this sight, this is just a wait and see situation. I had noticed about two weeks ago that she was having a hard time going up and down the stairs but thought it was her arthritis getting worse. She was favoring her left side when she walked but I thought it was arthritis. I feel badly now that I did not take her to the doctors sooner. I will let you know how it turns out. The vet says he will know tomorrow if it is a tunor or an infection. :-}
My 14 year old Sheltie was fine this morning. She ate her breakfast and did her “jobs”, but this afternoon began vomiting for about 2 hours. Afterwards she was shaky, which I attributed to the vomiting. But she couldn’t sit still. She was up walking around constantly. She has arthritis and just cannot be on her feet this long, so I laid her down on her pillow and she was a little more calm, but when she got up, she walked like she was drunk and appeared to be disoriented. She was drolling a lot too. After a few more minutes her walk went into right turns and right circles. I laid down beside her on the floor and noticed her eyes darting back and forth. This was something I’ve never seen happen to a dog. So I immediately went to the internet and searched strokes and found more information on CVD to be more similar to her symptoms. I’ve decided to take her to the vet in the a.m. and now that it’s 3 hours later and about 6 since this all started, she’s more calm and relaxed (or just plain exhausted). She hasn’t eaten or drank anything since this started and refuses to try. It breaks my heart when she’s sick and this is the worse she’s ever been. We’ll see what the vet says tomorrow. We are leaving on a 2 week European trip in 6 days so I hope we see a great improvement soon since she will be staying with her grandma who loves her dearly!
I have a 12 yr old Lhasa named Rags. She began having problems a few months ago with dizziness and coordination problems and I took her to the vet right away. He gave her an antibiotic shot and diagnosed her with epileptic seizures. I”ve never actually seen her have a seizure, he said I was just seeing the after-effects…i.e the dizziness. He gave me phenobarbital and told me to give her 1/2 a pill twice a day. She improved after about a week and has been fine for the last couple months. Now the dizziness and lack of coordination is back and almost worse than before. The vet now has me giving her potassium bromate liquid in addition to the pheno. I’ve seen no improvement…in fact, she has been very dizzy all day today and very lethargic. I’m a total wreck. After reading everyone else’s stories here (which most cases sound almost identical to hers) I’m calling the vet again tomorrow and talking about the possibility of her having vestibular disorder. I don’t like giving her these meds if epilepsy isn’t the problem. I’m also going to google the homeopathic CVD remedies that someone suggested a few posts back.
This little girl means the world to my husband and I especially since we have no human children…..and it just hurts so much because I’ve always been fussy about her care….
all-natural food, spring water, vitamins…..and she’s always been very healthy and playful. To see how she is now compared to just 6 months ago is just tearing us apart…I hope and pray the info I found on this site will help me help her. Thanks
Jen
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