Hi. I'm Dr. Fiona Caldwell, and I'm a veterinarian at Idaho Veterinary Hospital and I'm answering questions from Pets Best Facebook page today.
The first question comes from Denise who writes, "My puggle has been diagnosed with epilepsy and takes daily medication, Phenobarbital. Every time I put on his flea medication, I've tried both Frontline and Pet Wormer, he has a mild seizure about 12 hours after it's applied. Is there something else I can give him?"
Animals with seizures can be triggered by a variety of different things, and since this has been consistent, clearly this is a trigger for him. I agree you need to not give him this medication. The good news is there are so many flea, tick, and heartworm preventatives out there for you to try. The Frontline is a spot on. If you wanted to do something that was all inclusive, really you should talk to your veterinarian about different products, but you could use something like Revolution, which has flea and tick preventative and heartworm preventative. It might be a better option for you. There are oral medications that can be used as well. There are lots of products out there. Definitely talk with your veterinarian about trying something different so you can get the benefits of keeping him on preventative, but also not having him have these seizures.
The next question comes from Christine who writes, "We found a young male dog yesterday and we noticed he is able to stand on all legs, but when he walks, he only walks on his front legs. Everything else seems okay, but he's not able to walk on his back legs at all. Does it mean he's damaged and will need to be put down? He's tried walking on all of his legs, but he cries."
First of all, I want to commend you for opening your home to this dog that you found. This sounds pretty serious to me. I would absolutely make an appointment with a veterinarian right away. With him crying, clearly this is a painful condition. I can think of a lot of different things that could cause this, ranging from some sort of trauma like hit by a car, he could have a broken pelvis, to something maybe more congenital. Maybe his kneecaps didn't form right. Once you meet with a veterinarian, you can diagnose what it is that's causing this problem. There's a good possibility he could be treated. Dogs can get around on two legs. It's been done before. So as long as you can treat whatever is causing the pain and fix that part first with a veterinarian, then he may go on and have a really good life. So please call your vet and have him taken a look at.
If you guys have questions for me, feel free to post them on Pets Best's Facebook page.