Milo Has a Seizure

We have a 100 pound dog, Milo:

Milo, in his first days with us.  Shiny!

We adopted him from a family who had two young girls (like we do).  One of the girls had developed a dog allergy and Milo sheds like an alpaca, and I really wanted a dog, and the only way to convince E. to adopt a dog was to show him a big old black lab (he's a softie for labs).  So we brought him home and we've had him since 2010, which makes him about 7.

Right after we adopted him.  Check out the outfits on those kids.  These outfits are a sign that I am a most excellent mother and encourage my children's creativity and self-expression at all costs.

He has many good qualities.  He is one of the only dudes in the house, so he is basically E.'s best friend.  They talk and cuddle and grunt together a lot.  E. loves this dog.  You could say Milo is E.'s dog, really.  But Milo is also just an excellent family dog.  The girls have crawled all over him from day one and he's never protested.  He's also pretty low maintenance.  He has had a torn ACL since last spring that has required that we really restrict his movements while it heals, meaning no walks longer than a block, and he has remained his normal, cheerful self.  He is house-trained and good-natured, for the most part.

But he has some terrible qualities, too:

1)  He drools like a dental patient.  He wears a bandana most of the time so that we can wipe him off, but it's really an unstoppable force.  He's also fond of shaking real hard when he has long drool strings coming down, which sends boogery drool tracers all over the house.  If you're really lucky, he shakes while you're having dinner and one might land on your plate.  Yum!

And did I say he weighs 100 pounds?  This was not such a big deal when we lived in a big house in the suburbs but now that we live in a little house in the city, it really is like having a camel in your living room.  And he's super crotch-nosy with guests, and loves to smear drool on your black pants right before a big interview.  He's very, very helpful that way.

2)  He is a boy of habit.  Jesus, if Pavlov had met Milo he never would have needed to run the experiments, because this dog has a one-track mind.  He came in to Colorado on the "puppy train," and we think probably was pretty hungry as a little guy because he is food obsessed.  Every morning at 6 or so he wakes E. by rubbing his cold nose and drool-y lips on E.'s armpit, or ear, or wherever else you least want cold dog fluids on you when you're sleeping.  That is E.'s sign that it is time to get up and bring me my coffee or else face the wrath of God.  I love Milo for this.

3)  He loves his ball loves his ball loves his ball.  Milo is also tennis ball-obsessed.  He's especially fond of the game where he drops the ball under a dresser or couch and then tries to wiggle his giant mutant body under that low piece of furniture to get that ball.  Then he will hold the ball in his mouth for hours, demanding your appreciation, while veritable rivers of drool course from his giant cheeks.  But he is very easy to please this way, and since E.'s dad plays tennis, we are set with free dog toys for life.  Occasionally a box full of them shows up and Milo's eyes glaze over in ecstasy.

I won't mention the insane shedding and pooping four times a day, or the snoring/Chewbacca-like groaning because that's just dog stuff.  Whatever.

Wut.

All of this is set-up, right?  You know what's coming.  I'll set the scene.

Boise, Idaho.  Midst of a terrible, gray inversion that makes everyone in this weird state feel a little weirder.  No sun for days.  6:12 in the morning.  Might as well be midnight.  Or 3pm.  Totally disorienting.  Takes 74 minutes to fully wake up, on a good day.

I'm still asleep.  Like the dead.  But through the haze, I hear Milo rustling around.  It sounds like he is looking for his ball.  Giant toenails are scraping against the wood floors, trying to get a purchase.  His giant body is thrashing against something.  I mumble something about him calming the fuck down please and maybe kick E. a little bit to get up and get some coffee.

Quiet for a sec.

More thrashing.  Things come a little more into focus as I realize this is not tennis ball behavior.  There's no dog nose in my armpit.  Something's wrong.  I listen again.

Whimpering, low.  Weird breathing.  More flopping around and scratching.

E. and I fumble for our bedside lamps at the same time.  He's out of bed before I am.

"Wha....?"

"He pooped."

E. is trying to pick our 100-pound dog up.  I think E. is still half-asleep and is panicking because this just freaks both of them out more--E. is trying to get Milo to stop flopping around by cradling this giant beast in his arms and Milo, unaccustomed to being picked up, or still in the throes of whatever is freaking him out, thrashes more.

E. finally gets him onto the floor and gets him to stop thrashing and holds him still.  We both blink.  We are both thinking the same thing:  we fucked up not getting him the ACL surgery and his leg finally gave out.

E., who never cries, crumbles, astraddle giant, heaving Milo.

We didn't get the surgery both because it would have cost $3500 and because the vet said there was only a 40% chance of it sticking.  We'd have to crate Milo all day for months.  And we could expect to do the other leg soon.  And there is disagreement about whether to do the surgery at all.  Given all this, we gambled on not doing it, and the last few weeks Milo was showing some improvement.  I had been taking him on short walks, and his limp was less noticeable.

But honestly?  If this had happened during our fancier days we probably just would have gotten the surgery.  And I could tell this is exactly what was running through E.'s head.  The weight of that.

"No, no, no, honey.  It's going to be okay.  It's okay.  What do you want me to do first?"

"Clean him up."

So I get all the dog shit cleaned up, mostly, and I scramble to let Peanut outside before he pees in the house and I put a bra on and contacts in and some clothes on thinking one of us is going to be driving to the pet hospital.  Milo's eyes are panicky and his back legs aren't working but E. has him calm, finally, and Milo starts relaxing into the nice, mellow massage he's getting.

Then I take over the massage and E. gets dressed and looks up emergency vets on the phone.  Milo slowly comes back into himself and E. suggests we see if he can stand.  I'm doubtful because I'm still pretty convinced that it's his bad leg that has finally snapped or something.  We are such terrible people.  We are dog torturers.  And I'm thinking about how we are going to get him out of the house, into the car and to the vet.

But E. calmly rubs Milo down and slowly invites him to stand, and he does just fine, then walks fine, if a little shaky.  E. feeds him breakfast; Milo goes outside and pees and poops like always.

It feels like E. and I both start breathing again at the same time.  We agree that what we think happened was a seizure.  We think he lost control of his bowels and his back legs somehow and either panicked (thus the flopping) or was flopping around while he was seizing.  Hard to know.

Milo is exhausted--sleepy, no ball chasing, no drool shaking.  But otherwise normal.  We'll get him to the vet tomorrow and hopefully find out this was just a one-time thing, inconclusive, an anomaly.

And if not, well then, we'll do the next thing--medicine, surgery, whatever.  Whatever that is.