Meet Jaco: 19 months old, ready to work!
Jaco, a sable German shepherd, arrived more than a month ago at our house, and he’s just started foundation training in cadaver scent. He’s from the Czech Republic. We couldn’t be more thrilled with him. True, he’s got to be exposed to many more things: lots of people, kids, farm critters, rubble, trash, noise, our (sometimes noisy) friends. But what a little love. He’s as intense as a cobra when he wants to strike his blast-hose toy, but he cuddles and grins when he’s on the couch with us. You can almost see those little canine pleasure centers firing in his brain. You, toys, food!? He’s so different from our sweet Solo, whom we lost in April at the age of 11 (and yes, it still makes me cry). And yet, I see that same spirit in this pup: What do you want me to do? Can we play? You want me to spit out the toy? You nuts? Okay, only because it’s dead now, and you’ve got a live one in your hand. And Coda and he get along like gangbusters. (the wonderful photos are from Aimee Lyn).
sorry to hear of solo’s passing but glad to see your new honey bunny. good luck and keep up the good work. affectionately katie
I just read your story in the AKC about Jaco and thought I would share our experience. Yours was so similar, including waiting for the crate to rattle when he had his seizures. We barricaded rooms with pillows, so that he wouldn’t run into walls or furniture in the walking phase after the seizures.
Our story is about our male vizsla, Tokaj, who was born in 2010 and had his first fit in 2011 when he was one year old.
He is a neutered, now 10 years old and weighs 75 lbs.
The vet did many tests to rule out other causes for the seizures (thyroid, mri, blood) and he was diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy.
The medications he is on, is an 8 hour cycle of phenobarbital, gabapentin and levetiracetam. He gets potassium bromide (liquid) every 12 hours.
From 2011, he had seizures on a monthly basis. From 2011 to 2018 the seizures were increasing to clusters, as many as 24 seizures in 3 days.
In May 2017, we started him on a new dog food, Purina Neurocare. I do not have any affiliation with this company.
https://www.proplanveterinarydiets.ca/products-consumer/nc-neurocare-canine-formulas/
Seizures continued in 2017 and 2018 on the new food. After a year on the new food, with seizures during that time, his seizures stopped in June 2018. He continues to be seizure free and we thank our lucky stars!
I am grateful to our vet for finding the food and for Purina for developing it!
To entice picky eating, we dust the food with a small amount of crushed liver treats and have started using a powder called FortiFlora.
Our Vizsla is still on medication, but we have been slowly, slowly, slowly reducing his medications as per our vet.
Best wishes to you and Jaco!
Margaret and Tokaj
Thank you for sharing your story. This is such a familiar and difficult voyage. I’m so glad that you are feeling able to wean your Tokaj off medication. Sadly, last September, David and I made the difficult decision to euthanize Jaco. His health was deteriorating, along with his quality of life. I SO wish it had been different. And I’m sorry for the long silence in my response! Covid has changed all our schedules! Though we are all good. My best wishes to you and Tokaj~!