QUESTION

Our dog Buck had a sudden seizure-like episode three weeks ago. He recovered well with only slight loss of use of his right leg and a bit of legarthy. He began to decline for several days before having another, larger seizure five days later. After this he began to circle and be generally dissoriented.

We did our homework and came to the conclusion he had vestibular disease which our vet had never even heard of. We gave him all the attention that was suggested, sleep, quiet, love and in the end we were hand feeding him. At the end of two and a half weeks his disorientation became severe, he weakened and then fell into a coma-like state.

Despite everything he died yesterday and we have a couple questions. First of all, would a central (brain) lesion cause this type of sudden onset and rapid decline? And second, one vet we spoke to kept saying our dog might have rabies even though he had never seen him and all of our research indicated anything but rabies so we declined to bring him in because we were convinced the man wanted to put him down and have his head sent to a lab for tests.

So the other question is, could all the classic signs of vestibular disease, ie head tilt, circling, confusion, wandering eye on the side of the head tilt, sudden onset of disease beginning with seizure and ending with his ultimate decline into paralysis be signs of rabies? This last question seems more inportant to us because we have another dog and both of us were in close physical contact with Buck for the last three and a half weeks. Thanks you for any answers you can offer me. Sincerely

Jill H

ANSWER

Dear Jill H,
As U.K. vets we have little experience of Rabies so I am not able to offer too much in the way of advise. I do think however that the symptoms of vestibular syndrome match your dogs signs, though it should not lead in itself to death so a brain tumour may be more likely. From what I have read Rabies seems an unlikely diagnosis and if it was suggested by a vet who has not heard of vestibular syndrome, I would tend to agree with you.

Sandy Edwards