I wanted to talk about Vestibular again. It is such a common issue with dogs and yet something that is really unknown to most unless you've known someone who has experienced it or gone through it yourself. Since Tilley's onset of Vestibular disease back on the 11th of January I've met several people who had the same thing happen to their dog. The sad thing is that they had no idea what it was and to end their dog's suffering they had them put to sleep. I want to tell as many people as I can about this horrible yet very short lived experience. Of course all dogs are hit differently and all dogs will recover at a different rate, but they can recover.
Now at 10 months after the onset of Peripheral Vestibular disease, Tilley is doing amazing. She has good moments and some not so good moments. The mornings are good and bad, good in that she is rested and has more spunk although it takes her quite a while to get her footing straight. Going downstairs is about her worst activity, being that she lives in a perpetually crooked world. Lowering her head makes matters worse but she does it and has only stumbled a couple of times. She can run after her ball but has learned that she must slow down before trying to pick it up off the ground. She took several spills, head over heels before realizing things had changed.
She has an amazing appetite, can make it up onto both sofas and one lower human bed in the house. Tilley is very happy and healthy other than her Vestibular and now a spine issue. We are very careful how we roll her ball for her and try to avoid any spills that she may take. She lives to retrieve so although we have cut way back but it is something we cannot take away from her. Back several months ago she was completely paralysed in her two front legs. The vet gave her a 50-50 chance of recovering and after many tears she showed her true colors and made a full recovery. A shot of cortisone, pain meds and predisone and she was back at it.
Below are previous posts from when it first hit and pics at the bottom of Miss Tilley now at 13.5 with her residual effects of vestibular. She has a slight head tilt to the left and her body then wants to go left. She is also very unstable on her feet, that is until she sees a ball then somehow this old girl can fly. Unfortunately it never goes away but it most definitely gets better.
Tilley's initial onset post.
Video of what it looked like in the beginning
18 days later, she turns a corner
What is Vestibular disease?
