RETURN TO ANNIE’S PAGE
ANNIE’S MIRACLE
By Dawn M Turner, January 2006
Annie is an 8-year-old spayed female of the canine persuasion – half Border collie, half German shepherd. We adopted her at 6 months of age from a local rescue. She was removed from an abusive home at 2 months of age. Her dam’s owner beat, kicked and threw her, leaving her with brain damage. This originally posed problems only with some areas of learning and stress/exercise tolerance, along with expected fear of people and quick movements. Over time, she exhibited other problems, including focal seizures and associated confusion, fear and seizure-induced dog aggression.
Careful training and confidence building improved her fear of people and she learned that fast movements could actually be an invite to a wonderful game. We controlled the seizures to a great extent by switching to a raw diet (improve nutrient intake) and using chiropractic adjustments and deep muscle massage (improved nervous system function). Each year, we observed peaks and wanes in symptoms, with peaks during the first two weeks of September and March. Also, following rabies vaccinations, I observed major increases in fearful and aggressive behavior. That waned almost to normal after about a month. It never entirely returned to what was “normal” prior to vaccination.
During June 2004, focal seizures returned. By mid-August, those snowballed into clusters – several in a 24-hour period. This continued for several days. As they progressed, Annie’s behavior degenerated beyond anything we previously experienced, including her dog aggression. We took her for adjustments, only to discover she was completely disorganized along her spine and throughout her body. She had a couple of seizures during the week following her adjustments. There have been no more since then. She has been seizure free for about 17 months now. A new record.
However….
In February 2005, reality crashed in – Annie’s brain had been further damaged by August’s cluster seizures. This is not uncommon with clusters. Initially, symptoms exhibited remained pretty much “status quo”. They didn’t “heal” the way they had in the past, but they didn’t progress either, a fact for which I was grateful.
I continued to observe her thereafter and remained alert for dog aggression in case I needed to intervene. Then, in March, I saw a decline in behavior. She showed a marked decrease in tolerance for frustration and stimulation, at which time she tended to snap at or attempt to bite the other dogs. The nature of the stimuli was irrelevant – if she got excited, she went after them. She became increasingly difficult to manage, and her aggression level continued to climb.
In addition to aggression, she exhibited destructive behavior and excessive barking. She continued to be affectionate with us, happy, bouncy and outwardly healthy, though her muzzle showed signs of graying. Furthermore, she began exhibiting difficulty orienting herself in space. She ran into objects, walls and people if they were on her left side. Her eyesight was fine. She seemed to lose her ability to judge distance on that side. Her balance was affected as well. She became increasingly clingy. This put us both in danger with her growing habit of lurking directly under foot.
Eventually, barking was not restricted to everything in visual or hearing range. She began to imagine things/hallucinate. And, just as with people who have visual and/or auditory hallucinations, she reacted to those hallucinations as though they were very real. They were quite real to her.
Mealtimes became a challenge. Annie would forget she had eaten. She would eat, then minutes after walking out of the kitchen, she wanted to eat again. She would become increasingly… desperate about wanting food. Even with a full stomach, she thought she was hungry. Messages from her stomach to her brain seemed not to reach their destination. If I stood up from my chair in the living room, she would get excited as though it were mealtime, even if I was only getting up to go to the bathroom.
Another troubling symptom that appeared later – she exhibited difficulty getting up on and down off of furniture. No pain, no change in her gait, and no changes in leaping/jumping ability. Her hind legs just didn’t want to cooperate at times. The other dogs were anxious, afraid to be in the same room with Annie much of the time. I wasn’t sleeping well because Annie grew increasingly restless, pacing in her crate at night and through the house during the day. The stress level in the house was horrendous.
During all this, we saw no seizure activity, so the degeneration had me completely befuddled. As symptoms grew more severe, new symptoms emerged, and aggression hit all new and dangerous heights. I began to accept the fact I might have to make the final decision – euthanasia. The very thought devastated me. She had never threatened my husband or myself, but it was only a matter of time before her inhibitions eroded enough for her to do so. Some medications can lower inhibitions, too, thus making her MORE likely to bite instead of removing the threat, so I knew those weren’t an option.
Talking to others about all we were experiencing and seeing, I FINALLY got answers I needed. Mini-strokes. That would be almost expected with the damage to her brain. But, what could be done to stop them? Time, research and great input from friends led me to investigate taurine. After checking into it – crash course style since time was of the essence – I decided we had nothing to lose by trying it. If we did nothing, euthanasia was the only avenue left to us. I didn’t hold out hope that it would do more than stabilize her, but that was better than her continuing to go downhill. So that’s what I prayed for – stabilization.
On the evening of July 14, 2005, I started Annie on 500 mg of taurine once a day. The following day, she saw the vet and he said the taurine would not help her. Since she was already raw-fed, he felt she received more than sufficient taurine in her diet. He did not, however, give me any other viable options. I ignored his recommendation to dismiss the taurine and continued giving it to her.
Within days, I noticed changes in Annie. I reported to friends with Annie’s progress on July 21, 2005. Yes, that quickly. Barking decreased significantly, hyper-vigilance waned, and she slept at night again. Since she slept better, aggression decreased and mood picked up. Aggression remained above what was previously normal for her, but it declined. Lowered anxiety and being able to rest, I believe, was most responsible for that change. The episodes of forgetting she had eaten dropped off dramatically. And she was back to bouncing around on the furniture. This amount of improvement was far more than I ever expected.
But it didn’t stop there!
By August 30th, ALL neurological symptoms and behavior problems were either greatly minimized or GONE! Not only did the taurine stop the mini-strokes and the resulting degradation, it gave Annie back to us. Better than she was before, in fact! Even my hubby noticed how relaxed, happy and outgoing she was. She hadn’t been that bouncy since she was about 3 years old, and she’s never been THAT outgoing. Thoughts of euthanasia fell away into the dark recesses of “might have been.”
Best yet, September came and went without so much as a blip on the radar. No mini-stroke OR seizure activity. No behavioral regressions.
UPDATE: 03/11/2006
Annie continued to receive taurine until her death, given every other day in her food. That kept her as stable as was probably possible given the trauma-induced brain damage.
This simple supplement literally saved her life several months ago! If wonderful people in the know hadn’t directed us to it, I know she would have left us long before she did. We had a loving, wonderful companion for as long as possible.
Taurine is considered safe in supplemental form, even in large doses, UNLESS a pet is hypoglycemic. Another of taurine’s jobs is to lower blood glucose levels, thus it has found uses in treating diabetes in pets and people. However, that same quality could put a hypoglycemic pet (or person) into a low blood sugar crisis. It takes large therapeutic doses to have this affect in most instances, but it is unknown at this time WHAT constitutes “large” for pets.
As with ANY supplement, regardless of its nature, contents or claims made about it, be sure to thoroughly research it BEFORE you use it. I cannot emphasize this point enough! ALL SUPPLEMENTS AND DRUGS SHOULD BE THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED BEFORE USE. This could save you and/or your pet from some very unpleasant, and generally unnecessary, side effects.
Some sites/sources claim that cats need taurine but dogs do not. I do NOT believe this is true. I think dogs need more taurine that previously realized. Only time and research will reveal the truth about this. As for Annie, she’ll stay on the taurine she obviously needs.
Some of the wonderful ladies who helped me puzzle through Annie’s health issues are members of Rawpaws, a Yahoo group dedicated to feeding a species appropriate diet and using holistic medicine to help our pets. I highly recommend them to anyone who has serious interest in learning a healthier way for their pets – cats, dogs, ferrets, birds, chickens, you name it, we’ve discussed making their lives better. They have helped me immensely!
For more information on taurine, check out the following:
http://www.serve.com/BatonRouge/taurine_chmr.htm - Very informative about taurine!
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CCAH/Update06-2/6-2_Taurine.html - Specific to dilated cardiomyopathy in doogs.
http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/healthydiet.html - The role of nutrition in nervous system disorders.
http://www.ranvet.com.au/amino_acids.htm - Information about the role/action of varrious amino acids, including taurine.
http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/taurine.htm - Taurine & epilepsy in dogs.
Don’t stop there! There’s MUCH more info available. These are just my favorite sites on this issue. J