Question:
We rescued Dakota, a beautiful female English springer spaniel, when she was about 18 months old. Our vet gave her the series of Lyme vaccines, and a couple of days after the second shot Dakota began "air-licking." We took her to several vets, none of whom indicated her symptom was a real problem.
In addition, we gave Dakota heartworm preventive medication because we were told she was HW negative when we adopted her, only to find out she actually had heartworms. Our vet advised us to continue the preventive medication, and when she was retested later, Dakota was HW negative.
Dakota never had symptoms of heart trouble, but her air-licking continued for the next couple of years. We fed her an organic raw meat diet, no grain and filtered water.
About 2 1/2 years after we adopted her, she had a major seizure that did not resolve for almost 20 minutes, blinded her right eye and left her completely disoriented. We rushed her to an emergency clinic, where the vets diagnosed idiopathic epilepsy. They put her on a phenobarbital IV while keeping her in a crate where she could be observed. Twenty-four hours later, she went into cardiopulmonary failure and, despite efforts to revive her, died.
Only after her death did we learn that air-licking was actually a focal seizure. We would like your comment about what, if anything, might have been done for her. Could the phenobarbital have caused her death if the dose was too high?
V.W./S.N., Takoma Park, Md Nov 05, 2011
Answer:
My sympathies go out to you and poor Dakota.
Air-licking is most often a displacement behavior in animals who are in pain and afraid. Cats and dogs will sometimes repeatedly air-lick when they have an irritating skin condition or abdominal pain.
I think the second Lyme disease vaccination could have caused neurological damage. So can topical anti-flea/anti-tick products you might have used.
Giving the heartworm preventive medication to an already infected dog could kill some of the worms, which break up into emboli that block blood circulation. This might have been the cause of your dog's air-licking and later seizures from brain emboli.
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