Just thought I'd start a post for anyone with questions about epilepsy and what has worked for Juneau.

Many of you know, but for those of you that do not, Juneau was diagnosed at 10 months of age. However, in most dogs epilepsy will not surface until 2-5 years of age. Juneau was started off on Phenobarbital, but we had to later add Potassium Bromide also. These two medications have seemed to control his cluster seizures. His history on both meds is now one seizure in a five month span.

Unfortunately, a breeding dog does not have to have epilepsy to pass the unhealthy trait along. Please insure your dog. Scans and tests are expensive! As I have found, there are other genetic illnesses and unexpected accidents that could be covered!

Please feel free to ask questions about our experiences.

I myself have gone through the pain of losing a dog to epilepsy. My Alaskan Malamute male I had waited so long to get finally succumbed to this nasty ailment not that long ago. Sadly epilepsy is showing its ugly face in all breeds of dogs. Not just something that effects humans. One just dosnt know where it comes from. Two dogs can be mated and produce an epileptic dog and then they may never produce one again. Some last years on medication and others dont. So sad!

I don't have questions but I can tell you about two experiences whit dogs whit epilepsy.
Before I had a Mix Dog Named Beertje whit a very heavy form of epilepsy. Whit different kinds of medicine he had a lot of attacks. The death cause of many dogs that die in or from an attack is most of the times because there body and brains get to hot. So it is important to cool them down.
Also it is very important to learn even more to read your dog than otherwise so you will learn about triggers.

Whit that and whit a bit of experiments whit food in the beginning I have a very different experience whit Bine now who has epilepsy also. She gets only fresh meat to eat and I always watch here behavior and get in where needed. With that all she is now almost 5 years and have a total of 3 attacks in her live. She had more points that could lead to an attack but because I get in it was so lite that her body and brain didn't get a hit from it. Now the last year she is even without any medicine and no attacks.

There are lots of support groups out there now for dogs with epilepsy.
There is only one registered Tamaskan with epilepsy and although it is found a lot in the breeds used to make up the Tamaskan we hope to minimise the spread, firstly by using our Finnish imports whose ancestry are unaffected by this disease and secondly by having a higher breeding age than some breeds to give more time for the disease to present itself before any dogs are bred.

Here are the support group links. The top one is quite informative and has a forum of its own.

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I lost one of my previous dogs to secondary epilepsy she turned out to have a brain tumor while only 6 years old.
hope your dog will be ok on his new medication!

Another month past and NO Seizures!

That is great!!! Did you have any luck tracking down any of Juneau's litter mates?

add one more month to the count! starting him on some raw feed also. my brother gave me a bunch of venison, but i think i must go hunting soon!

That's great news!

I hope it continues for you that way too. Best of luck.