# Not quite a seizure, but strange



## KentuckyRufus (Aug 16, 2011)

We adopted a sevenish year old male rescue and are head over heels in love with this breed. Since Rufus is our first V I've been reading a lot about the breed and noticed the seizure issues. Rufus has these little episodes every once in a while where he shudders and then kinda shakes his head and licks his lips (like he has dry mouth). The best I can equate it to is a human having a shiver (the "someone just walked over my grave" thing).

Is this a common thing for V's?


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

I've not seen it, but it could be what they call a "partial seizure". Have you asked your Vet about it?


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## AugieDay (Jan 25, 2013)

Congrats on your new V, KentuckyRufus!
Seizures are a known problem in vizslas, but it's not well understood and still not very common. Our now 9 month old V started having full blown grand mal seizures at 4 months and while the beginning was horribly scary and awful, we have come to understand them better, gotten him on meds and have them better controlled. Our breeder is very reputable and has never had this problem and she has been great throughout this process (even refunded us $) so we don't blame her- just unlucky, I guess.
What you are describing does sound like a partial seizure. I'd take a video of it next time it happens and show it to your vet for them to confirm. The smacking/licking of the lips seems to indicate it to me, but they can better tell you. He might just be doing something completely normal for him. As I understand it through my research and experience, partial seizures are less serious than grand mals and if they don't happen too much nothing is needed to be done about them (i.e. meds), but definitely try to take a video of it and show your vet. The good news is, if they are seizures of any kind, they can be controlled so don't worry. Our guy, Augie, is a happy and healthy puppy otherwise!


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## KB87 (Jan 30, 2012)

Seizures coming in all forms so it's possible that Rufus could be having a seizure or a partial seizure. I've seen dogs who fully convulse, dogs who have tremors, dogs who have head ticks, some with eye twitching/rolling and all have turned out to be a form of seizure.

As AugieDay suggested, see if you can get a video on your phone of what is happening. Your first instinct is to help your pup when they seem in need but see if you can get even a 10 second video to show your vet what is going on. This could be extremely helpful as our vets can often see/look for symptoms that we don't notice or know to look for during these situations. Using a video, my cousin was able to show her vet what was going on with their 5 month old Bernese pup. They were able to immediately diagnose and then were able to seek the best treatment path for what he was dealing with.


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