HELP! 10 week Sheltie puppy with episodic ataxia

scruntinize what is different

10 wks and having illness this pronounced is frightening, I am so sorry for y'all. Having lived with seizures in my previous sheltie, I feel for ya. Did you profoundly change the diet? Having lived that, it is where I go first. For her a trigger was rosemary which is in many pet foods now as a staple, and many dogs have extremely adverse reactions to that. You can google it. If she had dog food or a treat with rosemary in minutes she would have a full blown seizure. That was a trigger...anything with poultry, also a trigger. She couldn't tolerate cheese, and that could be a trigger. Was there any kind of vaccination given recently...that can cause health issues immediately in some puppies, google it.

Just a few suggestions, but if the puppy was fine before at the breeder's you gotta figure out what is causing a change in the new environment. At least that is what I would compare. Good luck...
 
Update!

Hi everyone, so its been a few weeks since my last post and i am happy to say that we haven't had any more ataxia episodes since the second one.

We don't believe its epilepsy because we haven't seen a fit ( grand or partial) precede the ataxia.

We do believe it was metabolic, another vet mentioned something about triglycerides ( fats) and that a couple of shelties he had worked with in the past had similar symptoms from either not getting enough of these fats or getting too much.

I do remember our breeder saying that kangaroo mince was too low in fat for sheltie puppies and to just give him normal mince.

However, in my naïvety i was buying the leanest beef mince i could get thinking it was "healthier" than the fatty alternative and never made the connection about what she said in regards to the roo mince. Because mince at the time was 1/3 of his daily calories plus i may have under compensated his training treats as part of his daily food allowance and fed him less over the course of a day.

We have cut out all raw meat and wet food since that second episode and increased his dry food intake as requested by our vet. Hoping it is just a food thing and nothing else. But we are feeling especially lucky to not have had any more problems. Hoping it stays that way.

Thanks for all your support during those scary weeks.

:smile2:
 
That is a good update and hopefully the end of whatever was going wrong for your little lad.

Trini
 
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