Brain Tumor?

One of my boys has had two 'episodes'. He is only 9 years old. My vet having examined him thinks that the symptoms most likely point to him having a brain tumor.

I would appreciate it if any of you have had a dog with a brain tumor and would share your experiences with me either on the board or via pm. We aren't going down the MRI route as 1,000-2,000 is a lot to pay to have a dog pts if he has one. So at present we are simply waiting to see if he has another seizure.

thanks

Barbara

I personally haven't had a dog with a brain tumour, but if I was in your situation with a 9 year old dog, actually at any age, I too would probably 'wait and see'.

I work in GSD rescue and we've had a number of dogs with epilepsy (since it's a bit of a GSD thing) and a number within that group that have had either lesions caused by beating or brain tumours.

When a dog has epilepsy due to a brain tumour then that tends to follow an exponential curve of symptoms and things do tend to happen really rather quickly. A dog who has occasional seizures and then has their recovery time and is fine afterwards for an extended period doesn't have a tumour. If they have a tumour then it's one seizure, a gap of a few days/weeks, then another with a much shorter time afterwards before another happens even before they've really recovered from the last one.

In order to work out how the dogs felt I talked to a friend who has epilepsy to work out how the seizures affected her in recovery. She told me that even a small seizure resulted in her feeling really quite under the weather and like she was trying to think through treacle for about 3 days afterwards, so if another seizure happened in that time she just felt worse and worse and worse.

That made my opinion on how to treat the dogs in rescue a lot harder, because if they are maintained on medication and not having seizures then that's great, but if they have seizures once a week and that then means that they're having half of all of their time feeling crap, then that's really not a great way to leave your dog.

So my advice would be to look out for suddenly increased frequency of symptoms. If your dog does have a brain tumour then that increase may not happen yet, it may be in a week's time, it may be next month, it may not be for another 3 months, but it's unlikely to be much longer than that. In my opinion leaving them once they are at that increased rate of seizures is cruel, but it's pretty hard to miss when it starts to happen.

Of course, the seizures may not be what you notice first. Any sort of neurological symptom, from blindness to losing control of limbs or bladder/bowels or sudden crying in pain may be what you see, and I'm afraid that they are all bad signs. You may be able to slow the growth of the tumour with steroids or other medication, but it's pretty marginal and once you have other visible symptoms I'm afraid that this is a one way street and any loving owner knows when it's time to let them go rather than to make them go through it any more.

I hope that it's not a tumour and that you can control the seizures and you have a good long future together, but if it is a tumour then no amount of MRIs will save your dog and the kindest thing you can do is to not allow them to linger once they are having those quickly advancing symptoms.

Give him a scruffle off me please

I had two bitches last year who passed away with brain tumours, and it happened so quickly, within hours they lost the full body functions, could not stand on thir feet and did not reconize anyone, and strangely it happened with both my girls withinn a couple of months, was tragic to see, but they had no choice.

I grew up with Irish Setters bred by my granddad. For decades he avoided an increasing problem in the breed by carefully breeding in healthy lines, but for his last litter before he died he brought in a splendid dog from a well known Irish kennel -- and Finn turned out to be a carrier for epilepsy. I owned the last bitch in the last litter bred by my grandfather and hoped to continue is bloodine of nearly six decades, but when Shelagh developed seizures and it was determined she was epileptic I had no choice but to spay her and end my granddads bloodline with her. Epilepsy has clear signs, the onset is sudden, it can come at any age, and it is controllable. IN the case of my girl she was put on a phenobarbital tablet - one in the morning and one in evening so twice a day, and the seizures stopped quickly. It is an effective and inexpensive drug, and my vet wrote script for a pharmacist (for humans) to sell us the drug at a price he could not match and Shelagh lived to be 13 before she died of simple age related problems.

I would ask you vet, on the chance it is epilepsy, to give you one of the seizure controlling drugs to see if this is effective. If it is epilepsy there is no need to have more elaborate tests as the drugs on the market today are pretty effective and the seizures should not recur. If the seizures recur and it may indeed be a brain tumor I would still go slow and seek advice on how to manage the seizures, noting when they occur and their severity (we did all this with Shelagh). I would not spend a ton of money testing further till I see a developed pattern to the seizures and your dog's recovery from them. If the severity increases and your dog manifests further problems, beyond the seizures, you will have to cross another bridge. But I genuinely would rule out epilepsy first before undergoing expensive tests that may prove to be inconculsive at great cost. If it is a brain tumor the gods truth is it will not get better and there is no sense spending a lot of money and having surgeries that will likely not work. In that case I would keep your dog going so long as it does not in any way suffer, and then when or if you are satisfied there is no improvement in quality of life, I would gently and kindly let your dog go without further intrusive tests or treatments. It is darned hard to lose a much loved dog, but at least we have the option of giving them the route to peace we cannot as humans typically expect if we become catastrophically sick.

I am hoping for the best for you and your dog. Proceed slowly and with caution, and do not be stampeded into undertaking hugely expensive tests or undertaking remedial measures that have no good expected long term prognosis simply because the vet practice sense your vulnerability in a time of great difficult. I am pulling for you both.

Lanny Morry

Avalonia Whippets, Canada

Lanny said:

Proceed slowly and with caution, and do not be stampeded into undertaking hugely expensive tests or undertaking remedial measures that have no good expected long term prognosis

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I agree with the other posters, and great experience from Eingana there. If he had another seizure I would look at epilepsy drugs, if they work great if they don't then I'd let the dog go before the seizures got too frequent.I wouldn't go for an MRI as there is no positive outcome to that. I'm aware typing this that it's easier to say than do, have been in the position too many times, but a dog doesn't know when it's going to sleep for the last time - it's only us that suffer.

Fingers crossed that he either doesn't have any more fits, or that he has epilepsy that will be well managed by the appropriate drugs.

Really sorry to hear this Barbara!

I had a Boxer with a suspected brain tumour, she had one fit, which was very rapidly followed by more, I tried medication, but it either knocked her out or had no effect, this was 20 years ago though, so hopefully things have moved on!

I had her put to sleep before she suffered further, she was 10. Boxers are very prone to cancer though

Good Luck to your little lad xxx

Thanks for your replies. re medication my vet has said that unless Mouse is having an episode every week or twice weekly then due to the severe affects of the medication it's not worth put him on epilepsy meds.

At the moment we are waiting to see if he has another seizure. That and feeling shellshocked.

So sorry to hear you having such a horrible worrying time, just wanted to say how sad it is

Thanks to everyone who has replied or sent pm's. Best thing is that Mouse is happily being a Mousie roo rooing and bouncing about when he's awake or being mister cuddly dog.

best of luck to Mouse and yourselves however long she has left you'll have done right by her she has a happy loving home

a friend of mine had a gsd which kept fitting and it wasnt good, the dog was 10 ish and for me i would have put it to sleep as wasnt getting anybetter but kept it going for another year and a bit, in the end the dog MUST come first, all the best with your situation,

So sorry Barbara. Can't offer any advice but just wanted to say we are thinking of you both and Mouse of course, and hoping that things will look a bit brighter for you all soon.