16th January 2014

Starr ~ Female (desexed) Belgian Shepherd Dog. Born 10^th June 1999.

About
Starr currently takes Onsior for severe arthritis in her hocks (seen by Mark Foley).
She is not a confident dog and is going to be very frightened in different surroundings and with people she doesn’t know even without what has happened to her. I have left her blanket and some other things that will have my scent on them to try to help her feel more secure, please keep them with her, it doesn’t matter that she toilets on them.

Description of what happened.

Starr was unsteady when she got down from the couch this last Sunday evening (approx 10pm) she walked about 15ft and collapsed.
At first I thought she was going to seizure (she doesn’t have a history of seizures but epilepsy is known in Belgian Shepherds), she didn’t seizure but exhibited some things I’ve seen before with my old dogs when they had what turned out to be geriatric vestibular attacks.
I sat with her leaning on me, she was and still is leaning to the left side more and has a head tilt to the left.
At the time her eyes appeared to be normal she didn’t have the rapid eye movements my other dogs had, but she started to exhibit slight signs of this 2 days later (not as bad as my other dogs had though)......
Another thing that went through my mind at the time of her collapse was snake bite having just lost a dog to a tiger snake bite, but the leaning and head tilt made me think it wasn’t that and she also ate her dinner OK about 4 hours prior to this collapse and hadn’t been outside since.

She hasn't wanted to eat since Sunday, I’ve tried her with different foods to tempt her (she vomited up what I assume she hadn’t digested on Monday).
She has been able to drink a little bit of water with me holding the dish in front of her but not as much as I think she should and I’m concerned about how much she’s keeping down because I’ve noticed her throwing some of the water up and I can’t give her water when I’m at work. I noticed she had vomited some green bile on Wednesday.

She can't stand or move around, I’ve been gently carrying her outside on the grass to give her the opportunity to go to the toilet, sitting with her and then carrying her back in, she doesn’t always go and won’t go if I hold her up either, so I’ve just been putting towels under her inside and just trying to keep her clean using warm wet towels (not with the greatest success) but she panics if I try to wash her off properly and I can’t hold her up and wash her at the same time myself.

Some background info

She hasn’t had as good an appetite lately but my older dogs do this now and again so I wasn’t concerned.
About 5 nights prior to her collapse I woke to a scrabbling noise to find her stuck under my bed (she sleeps on my bed through the night), I now suspect she had some kind of attack, seizure that night.
She has been panting a little more than usual lately, she does that when she gets stressed and I put it down to stress from visitors we’ve had over Christmas etc
In regards to her coat/tail, it has been like it is for a couple of years now, I had been clipping her because she hates to be brushed and the last time it never really grew back.

Note: I’m very worried she is dehydrated and concerned she isn’t eating.