No, my dog isn't drunk. (But I can see why you'd think so.)

August 6, 2005 7:50 PM

Does anyone here have experience living with a dog with vestibular syndrome? It's a balance disturbance/disorder that affects the dog's motor skills much like a stroke.

I have lots of experience with canine health care - but this is new to me. From what I've been able to garner from Googling, the experience for the dog is like being drunk, and my girl is stumbling quite a bit. Initial onset was Monday, and she has stabilized and improved significantly.

My vet let her come home last night. She's taking Dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, which is intended to avoid swelling in her brain but also seems to have upset her insides: she had diarrhea episodes last night. And she's drinking a ton of water, but that's normal for a dog on steroids.

Her spirits are good and her motor skills have improved a ton since Monday; she is able to walk up and down a set of 2-3 stairs outside my apartment when I steady her by her harness. I'm just wondering if anyone has tips on how to make the recuperation easier for her since she is so off balance.

Oh, and if anyone is curious about her generally: she is a 12-year-old Sheltie whom I adopted from a rescue group in January. (Looks somewhat like Lassie.)

posted by younggreenanne to pets & animals (3 comments total)

Dammit, I really screwed up that link.
posted by younggreenanne at 7:57 PM on August 6, 2005

I went through this a few years ago with one of my dogs, a shepherd/collie mix. She was 14 at the time and had other health issues at this age including deafness and arthritis. Not knowing about the condition before it came upon her, it WAS very scary and it looked very much like the dog was having a stroke. She had numerous health problems throughout her life and was put on steroids several times, with all the adverse side-effects that entails. We took her to the vet and the vet diagnosed vestibular syndrome and said it could be treated with steroids which made me and my wife apprehensive right away. Being my wife's dog, she wasn't quite prepared to say goodbye to her but when she asked the vet whether the treatment would "cure" her or it would recur, and being told that recurrence was common, she made the decision to put her down. Sorry, it's probably not what you wanted to hear, but in this case we were thinking mainly about the dog's quality of life, not our being able to live with the condition (although that was part of it).
posted by AstroGuy at 9:33 AM on August 7, 2005

Keep the lights on. Darkness makes vestibular problems worse because it deprives the brain of the visual component of balance-keeping.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:10 AM on August 8, 2005