Hi All,

     I have an amazing rat terrier - Harley (my daughter named her) - and lately she has been exibiting some strange behaviour.

We went to the vet and he took blood samples and we ruled out epileptic attacks.

This is a description of her behaviour:

    She whines, tries to climb up our leg, rolls her face on the floor (both sides), lies down and rolls from one side to the other, runs up to us and runs away. She keeps doing this over and over until all of a sudden everything is great and it was only our imagination and she is fine!

She started this about a year ago when she turned 3 years old - not often - but lately it seems to be happening more often. It is almost like she is in a trance, sleep walking, hypnotized.

Has anyone experienced this with their pet and can you help?

Regards,

    Dominic

Hi Marie Beth,

    Thank you for your quick reply. The vet said if it continues to bring her back but at this time he has no ideas he would have to see it when it happens. That is going to be hard as it does not last more than a few minutes - seems like forever.

I thought of itching - but that bad? Now that you mention it could it possibly be something in her ear? TIck maybe? But I checked as far as I could in her ears.

I guess I need to keep trying - thanks so much.

Dominic

The decription you give sounds very much like what Maggie does when she finds a dead bug, a worm, or when she kills a grass snake.  She also does it in the front yard where another dog has peed.  It has something to do with dominance over the other critter.  This will sound stupid I guess but Indians believed that when they killed an anilmal, they took on it's spriit.  So when they killed a buffalo or a bear, the animals spirit continued to live as part of their own.  That is what Maggie's rubbing her face where the dead critter lies, reminds me of.  So, is it possible another animal has sprayed there, marked that territory and she is rubbing her face on it?  Maybe far fetched sounding, but had to ask. 

Oh, and welcome!

Hi Dominic,

Welcome to the site!  Lots of great people here! 

What kind of food do you feed her?  Just curious to know if it's food allergies or something.

Oh duh, I didn't read that part, I agree it couldn't be a bug for a whole year.

I wondered how the vet ruled out epilepsy because my daughter went to the ER recently after a seizure and neither blood tests or a CAT scan could rule out epilepsy....she has to see a neurologist for that.  They did do blood tests but it was checking other things......maybe dogs are different though.

My Sasha has been through $1,000s worth of diagnostic testing to determine what caused her seizures - it can be a number of things.

CAT scan showed no brain tumor - the only thing bloodwork can show is if the dog has liver/kidney disease, which could be an underlying cause of seizures...

X-rays are pretty useless.  It could be cardiac related (arrythemas (sp, sorry!)).  I'm going through all this with Sasha now and it's making me CRAZY that I've spent so much $$ and don't have a diagnosis.  In Sasha's case, however, I think her age (almost 19) could be a reason why she's having seizures... and considering she started having them when she was 17, could still be related to age.

I know this probably doesn't help, but this has been my experience with it.