The story of Jess :

We received this story from a friend.....

Jess is a 5 year old dally. She picked us when she was 12 weeks old and came to live with us. Being a typical dally, she is a loving dog who loves nothing more than snuggling in to you. She adores swimming, which is a bit unusual for the breed I've heard, but you can't keep her out of water.
 She is also an accomplished thief! She is very clever at distracting you enough to steal whatever food is on the go! Nothing apart from mushrooms is safe! We rescued Isa who is a liver spotted dally when she was 9 months, and the 2 are devoted to each other.

Sadly when Jess was 3 she began having seizures. They appeared from nowhere and have continued for the last 2 years. After bloods and X-rays and scans the vet decided that she has idiopathic epilepsy. We started on phenobarbital medication twice a day. This resulted in a massive change in Jess. She became very sleepy, eating anything she could get her paws on. This has resulted in weight gain. The most upsetting change was in her personality - she became very irritable and was easily annoyed. After a year the seizures became more frequent and longer. The medication had been increased and we commenced on another drug, which meant Jess was on 7 tablets a day. Jess was so drugged she was no longer the same dog. She had no energy, she was blown up and her features changed, our happy crazy Jess had gone. The seizures continued and Jess had a poor quality of life. We were at a loss as to what to do, we didn't want her suffering but didn't want to lose our precious dog.

We decided to take her off some of the medication. If she had a better quality of life and she had a few seizures a week we could deal with that if she could. She has slowly returned to her old self and when she is not having seizures she is a delight. We are undecided about stopping her other medication as she has at least 3 seizures a week, would she have more? The family are well used to seizures now. My daughter deals with them like a pro! Needless to say we don't know how long we will be blessed to have our mad dog, but we are thankful for our time with her.

Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated, thanks