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Old dog vestibular disease

Basenji Health Issues & Questions
  • Our dog Rascal is 14 years old. He was recently diagnosed with idiopathic old dog vestibular disease. The vet prescribed 10days of antibiotics and 14 days of Prednisone. At first he improved from unable to walk to having a head tilt and being slightly unsteady on his feet. The antibiotics were completed 2 days ago and we are tappering the prednisone. His symptoms are getting worse. I haven't noted any facial paralysis. The vet didn't see any signs of ear infection. He mention a visit to a specialist as the next step. Any similar experiences or advice?

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    MDSPHOTOM
    We had a Dalmatian that started having these issues at the same age as your B. Vestibular disease got worse causing her to lose her balance and fall when walking, loss of strength in her hindquarters and incontinence. I am not aware of any treatments for the VD, but there are a number of human treatments for strokes that might be able to be used in dogs.
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    @Craigh: Pat - I had an off-topic question since you've got so many older dogs. I know you're usually against free-feeding, but how do you feel about this with older dogs? If Alex (15 years 6 months) eats too much at a time he usually ends up throwing up. Therefore I feed him two small portions twice a day. However, during the day he gets hungry (it's impossible to put/keep weight on him) and I've been keeping a small bowl of dry food around for him to pick at. He'll usually go by every 3-4 hours and eat a couple bites between meals. Do you see a problem with this? It's so hard to get him to eat and keep his food down that this is the only thing that seems to work longterm. The way he's been acting the past few months I doubt he'll see another birthday so I try and indulge him any way that I can. Since you only feeding one dog, I certainly would do whatever works for him… and at his age... if he were mine, I would do exactly like you and indulge him totally
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    BeckisB
    Ok. Thanks again
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