Ollie came to us as a gorgeous puppy who we fell in love with him the second we saw him at 4 weeks old. He consequently grew into the Ollie we knew and loved and had a huge personality, loved cuddles and kisses, both from us and the other dogs, he was just full of life and was much fun to be around ! He loved nothing more than to be by your side and was very much the most friendly dog I ever knew. Now I know all Spins are super friendly, but well he just had that edge about him. Those that met him will know what he was like, he like to be liked, and if that mean't sitting on your lap, or parking his bum on your feet to keep you in situ, then so be it !! He had a feelgood factor about him which made him extra special.

In the February of 2005 he had to have an operation on 2 hollow infected front nails, and was taken in by our vets for a simple op.

A few days after this operation, we were found to be crouching over him at 6am one Saturday morning thinking he was having a heart attack. I remember it like it was yesterday, never, ever before have we been so terrified.Unbeknown to us at that time, he was having his first grand mal seizure. A visit to the vets told us that it could have been a reaction to the operation, vaccination he'd had a few days before that and it was a game of 'wait and see'..... Unfortunately a month later that same scenario repeated itself, almost to the day and minute. We again found ourselves watching our beloved Ollie contort, thrash, foam at the mouth, urinate, and go so rigid I was sure his heart would stop, how could it take this horrifically vicious trauma ? This time around for a good hour after the seizure, we found Ollie blinded, trying to walk into corners, terrified, and very, very distraught indeed. He didn't recognise us, nor did he find any solace knowing we were around guiding him so as not to harm himself walking into things.

This was in no uncertain terms terrifying for us, how the hell was he feeling. It didn't bear thinking about. We knew from his face and saddened scared wide-open eyes, he was feeling frightened.....no terrified, and that upset us terribly as he couldn't tell us how to help him.We felt absolutely helpless. Again a visit to the vets told us that we would need to have an mri and spinal tap to rule out other reasons for the seizures occurring. Having asked what these 'other' reasons were we were faced with the possibilities that Ollie could have a brain tumor, or lesions, and or cancers.

Terrified we left the vets surgery and took our sick Ollie home wondering what the future held for him. We know from that vets visit that he would never be the same again. Our mri appointment came through for May 14th, funny how I still remember that exact date all these years later. We were now only in mid March and was told it was best not to medicate Ollie for fears that the medicines may interfere in the mri results. We now heavily question that decision and wonder if the theory that 'seizures beget seizures' increased his probems.... but at that stage of things we knew nothing about epilepsy, so couldn't question our vets. Good 'ole hindsight again.

At the end of March through to the appointment time with the AHT in Newmarket, poor Ollie had about 42 seizures, sometimes one every 1/2 hr for a few hours. I remember the days of finishing work at lunchtime dreading if I would open the door to find him no longer alive. It was often I would open the door only to be greeted with a sorrowful, frightened, half blinded Ollie, obviously relieved to hear my key in the door and know I could now take care of him. He would be glued to my side day and night. You could immediately sense his relief. You always knew if a seizure had happened in your absence as you were greeted with the unique, sweet seizure, urine smell, a smell that you only recognise having had a seizing dog.

I remember so clearly the one time I came home at lunchtime to find he had jumped the stairgate up the stairs (yes up - pre seizure epileptics do very strange things) to the bedrooms and had had a series of seizures on the spare double bed, only to have had them so violently he had fallen down the side of it to find himself wedged between the wall and the bed, upside down, legs in the air, blinded, he couldn't find out where he was, nor how to get himself up. I remember too how that vision broke my heart. I see it clearly even now. I dreaded to think how long he could have been there.

Here was our lovely Ollie, helpless, frightened out of his wits, blind, and I wasn't there to help him. The next day in work (I only worked in the office mornings) I changed to working from home full time. My conscience wouldn't allow me leave that boy at home so vulnerable. It was here, on that day, that life really did change to focus fully around Ollie. He became the decision maker in our home. Things were increasing in severity in the next couple of months, and he was looking more poorly as the seizures took their toll. I think they say that each and every seizure is the equivalent of a human runing in the London Marathon. If Ollie was having up to 9 or more in any 24hrs, sometimes twice a week, I went without saying that we would worry constantly about how his poor tortured body must be in such a ravaged state. It upset us tremendously, but we coped as best we could knowing that we were doing all we could, changing everything we could, and after the mri and spinal tap had been done, if it was just idiopathic epilepsy, with the medication, suely he could be 'cured' ......couldn't he?

We carried on caring for Ollie as best knew how, along with the support of our wonderful vets and nurses at our vets surgery, we counted the days until we could get the mri and spinal tap done. Finally, the day of the mri arrived, and we took Ollie to the AHT.

Anxious and scared, we left him there in the care of the neurologists, trying not to think the worse. After being called back to say he was able to come home, we met with the neurologist and was told they had found nothing untoward, if anything they had found, it was that Ollie has more brain than needed, but this was not something they thought would be causing the seizures.

Well, we always knew Ollie was super clever, so that cleared that up !

We came home with a diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy "of no known cause". We didn't know whether to celebrate or cry ! If it had been something 'fixable' would that have been easier ? Sounds ridiculous, but if they could have operated, and taken 'something' away - would that have been a good thing ? It was a little confusing, and super scary now - we were venturing into the unknown - but what exactly did this mean for Ollie ?

The very next day after the mri he was at long last offered Phenobarbital in the form of Epilease tablets. Never before have I been so happy to be offered a prescription for my dogs ! We gave the first tablet to Ollie on May 15th, and he had no further seizures for just over 4 months - result.......

.....Not.

Ollie suddenly got very sick, weak, was lethargic and worryingly wouldn't eat, (unheard of for him) and the vets diagnosed a viral infection. A few days later after many seemingly 'neurotic owner' vet calls, we saw the medication was not having any effect, so we ventured back to the vets where it was decided that a full blood profile was to be run. We took Ollie home, very sick, he could hardly find the energy to sit upright. We waited half an hour and got a phone to call from our vets to say Ollie's blood was off the scale, he had hardly any white cells, neutraphils (sp.) were barely existent, and reds were equally low. His body was fighting against itself, and that fight was in effect killing him, albeit slowly.

He was rushed, in the back of our car 20 minutes later back to the AHT in Newmarket, where the wonderful Lara took charge of him, telling us he was a very sick boy indeed. I saw in her eyes that day that she was worried about him, and I did think as he was wheeled off on a trolley, too weak to walk any further, that I would never see that boy again. It was only the next morning (they were running tests that afternoon and evening, and had phoned to say he was 'comfortable' but very sick) that we were told that Ollie was suffering classic symptoms of a rare condition - Phenobarbital toxication.

In simple terms the epilepsy drugs mean't to stop the seizures, had done their job, at the price of almost taking his life in return. It was like we had made a deal with the devil. He was taken off the phenobarbital cold turkey, and loaded immediately with Potassium Bromide Kbr. He had a bone marrow biopsy to see what was occuring is the bone marrow, alongside many tests to determine what was going on with him.Lara also added in a human grade anti seizure medication called Keppra (Levetiracetam). Whilst in the hospital he was also found to have pneumonia through the infection the toxicity had caused him, and was also treated for that in the 2 1/2 weeks he was a patient at the AHT.

We were told that Ollie was unfortunately what was termed as a sufferer of 'pharmacoresistant' epilepsy, in other words he did not find any real help with the traditional medications, the body resists the medication making seizure control very difficult indeed. It was a double blow as how do you stop seizures if the medication isn't working. What else is left to help ?

The day we collected him, he was no longer our Ollie, he didn't know who we were, and why we were so happy to see him, he was zombiefied, and he looked whippet thin. He had the saddest eyes I have ever seen in a dog, truly soulless - he just looked right through you. Those once sparking eyes had lost all of their amber lustre, their smile and the ever present mischievous twinkle was gone. It broke our hearts all over again to see our boy like that.

Once again, after another 6 months of seizure free times, slowly the seizures reintroduced themselves to their forgotten path, one seizure a month, then every 2 weeks, then every few days, they cleverly gained strength and worsened.

We found ourselves having to rush him on New Years Eve at 5am firstly to the vets, who saw the state he was in, only to refer us immediately to the AHT, we loaded poor Ollie limp and almost lifeless in the back of the car. Again the AHT managed to stabilise Ollie, he would come home from their care dazed and confused, but still wanting to offer a gentle kiss though he was still in wonder as to who you actually were. We hated those first few days back home, not because we didn't want him home, far from it, purely just because he didn't know us, it was just so heartbreaking watching him go around tentatively like it was a place he had never been to before in his life, yet he had lived in the very same home environment for the 5 years he'd been on this earth.

Another drug was added to his regime called Neurontin (Gabapentin) in the hope it would help to stabilise his seizure activity once and for all in combination with the other 2 drugs.

By now our monthly cots for Ollie's medications were hitting £450 a month. Luckily he was insured, but of course you still have to pay this and then claim it back, only to receive your payment some weeks later.We carried on regardless of the costs and it's implications. He was so precious, we just had to see the days in between the seizures grow, especially as those days in-between, for the most part were like going back in time. We truly cherished those good days.

We didn't quite have back the 'old' Ollie, he was long gone, but we did have a content, happy go-lucky Ollie, a little sod shall we say ! He was always finding ways to feed his forever hungry urges, he'd find a way to get to anything barely edible, and would usually succeed ! We couldn't cook anything on the hob without carrying it around the kitchen still in the saucepan if you wanted to add anything to it - he was that quick in thinking when it came to his belly !

I can only apologise now to those people having experienced lunch or dinner at our house. Ollie would usually be quite happy to help them share their dinner any which way, even if they unknowingly weren't intent on sharing, Ollie would willingly show them how! It would only take a split second for them to take their eyes off their plate to find they'd lose it's contents altogether. He was forever hungry, in fact starving, but it just wasn't his fault, it was the medication !

We saw a few more times where Ollie found his way to being admitted to the AHT. He was becoming quite the regular with the neurologists, and we were very much on first name terms and swopping emails like friends. Things seemed to get better for a few more months, then go to the absolute extreme right when you thought things had taken a turn for the better.

Epilepsy always knew how to take you out of your comfort zone, and into the depths of despair within minutes. It very much knew how to stop you becoming complacent, and knew very much when to kick you firmly in the teeth.

We unfortunately got those 'kicks' often.

Our whole lives were based around Ollie, we dared to have a had a holiday only once, regretting it the minute we got on the plane.

To be aware of being thousands of miles away from home, without any contact whilst you flew was sickeningly scarey. You have to then remotely deal with texts and phone calls of how many seizures were occuring in your absence, you felt sick being so far away, and utterly helpless - so it just wasn't worth it. We wished ourselves back home the day we arrived, just as much as we'd wished to get away for some peace and normality.

By your life being lived treading on eggshells, you found you absolutely craved, and longed for a break into the normality of life, you found yourself jealous of friends able to go away on the spur of the moment for a weekend away, only to find you were happier being at home actually, and it was better for all concerned to be around him purely so you could take control where needed. It was a very vicious circle. We hardly invited friends to stay as this upset his routine, and those that have to deal or have dealt with this disease know how it's 'routine-routine-routine' all the way.

It's safe to say that you couldn't do anything without prior planning, medication times had to be adhered to or you paid the ultimate price. We just couldn't bear to be away from Ollie for fear of others not coping in the ways we knew how to, no matter how much we trusted people or were thankful for their efforts, in our eyes we knew how to deal with him, they didn't (even though god knows they tried !) and he was therefore our responsibility. How could you put a ticking timebomb that is an epileptic dog into the hand of others. It wasn't fair on us, but more to the point, it certainly wasn't fair on them.

We knew being apart from us and out of his comfort zone always made him fret so much he would make himself ill. Ollie needed us, and in return we found we need him. We were all happier being around each other, one feeding off of another's security.

It was in the may of 2006 that another evil helped Ollie to more trauma. We came back after a morning out, only to be greeted with Ollie at the door, nothing abnormal about that, but he wasn't right, call it a sixth sense, but we knew. He was trying to be sick a few times, unproductively. He couldn't settle, and was not happy.

BLOAT - ?

I had read, thankfully on the Spinone Yahoo group (Thank You - you saved Ollie's life for educating me) about the signs, and by knowing what to look for we rushed him to the vets.

They checked him and couldn't agree it was actually bloat, (I was convinced) more he had a stomach ache or had eaten something untoward.

We came home after he was given a charcoal solution, only to call out the vets 3 more times during the afternoon and evening and up til 3am where our vet called in at home for the second time that day. We suddenly heard Ollie crying out in pain, and before our eyes, his stomach became as tight as a drum and bloated.....we rushed him to the vets surgery where the both the vet and ourselves tried to pass a tube into his stomach, we did this without joy for 10 minutes, and the vet agreed that his stomach had twisted so time was of the essence.

They opened him up to find his spleen wrapped around his stomach. His spleen was dead effectively, and was removed.

Again the seizures we not being controlled, so Lara added in a fourth 'drug' after deciding to wean Ollie off of the Neurontin. It was agreed that actually it was making Ollie's seizures more intense and more often (or so it appeared, when you have a cocktail of drugs you can really only assume or speculate as to which suddenly aggravates the situation).

We added a natural herbal remedy called Skullcap and Valerian, bought from Dorwest Herbs. They really did make the weaning off of Neurontin easier on Ollie, they have a constant, if very slight (un-noticeable) sedating effect on the brain, much in the same way as the Neurontin had, and I still believe today they really helped halve the seizure post-ictal (time after seizure) for him.

His post-ictal was severe usually, sometimes he would be like a mad, wild crazed dog, and bark, howl, wooo-wooo, and climb walls, and I do mean climb walls. Wallpaper was non existent in 'his' favourite corners. He would pace for hour upon end, sometimes hardly able to stand ourselves through lack of sleep, we'd be ushering him around 3am in the morning in our slippers in the snow (not easy holding up a crazied and very determined 40kg dog) his blindness making him like a frightened deer, we'd be holding him up for fear of him falling over and breaking a leg.

It was, for us and of course for Ollie the worse of the whole epilepsy situation. Add valium into the equation and you lost Ollie for days into a sheer maddening craziness. He was replaced by a monster, a truly un-consolerable one, who would not sit still (or could be physically made to for anything) for 3 days.

He did not take kindly to you holding him to try to add some calmness, (he gained strength there the would test the strongest man) but would inconsistently pace until sheer exhaustion took it's toll and he had to sleep, albeit for 10 minutes, after which he'd be back up again pacing like a demon had taken over, and his life depended on him not stopping. We knew the second we gave rectal valium to him to stop the cluster seizures, we would lose our normality at home for the next 3-4 days.... if not a week.One of us would have to be with him 24hrs a day. Those nights were long and difficult. Often we'd find oursleves falling asleep waiting at the door for him, tired beyond belief, only to be found startled awake as he started to howl again.

The worst case of this happened after a particularly bad round of clusters, in the January of 2007. We knew by now through sheer have to how to deal with the seizures, the clusters and anything else epilepsy had thrown at us, but this particular time the seizures were vicious, more intense, we had resorted as always to the rectal valium, only to have Ollie in almost a vegeative state the next day. He was slug-like, unable to sit upright without swaying, he looked miserable, and couldn't sleep without making the most heart wrenching cries as if in pain. Being here with him whilst Jon was at work, I cuddled him and thought, enough is enough. I made the call to our vets in tears, saying could they come and make his pain go away. I feared this moment the past two years more than anything. I felt physically sick.

I called Jon who came home in a panic, and we both sat with him, his eyes looking so sad and burdened it was painful to watch him.The vet arrived some 20 minutes later, and Jon met her at the gate, obviously explaining the state I was in, I kind of remember saying to Ollie, okay Ollie, if you are wanting to live, now's the time to decide. I walked out leaving him on his bed in the lounge, to see the vet at the gate. We all chatted with unease at the situation before us, and she said we were doing the right thing, she was trying to reason we had battled more than anyone she had ever known had done, or probably would do. She was probably right, but at that moment in time, it wasn't a help to know that. I was in a flood of tears, hardly believing this was happening to our special boy, and then I saw the vets face drop and watching her face I turned around. There, walking towards the gate, stumbling, tail low but wagging, was Ollie.......

He wasn't ready to go, it was his sign.

I clutched at his ravaged body, feeling him lean his weight against me in sheer exhaustion, he lifted his head slowly and looked into my eyes. I didn't look back to the gate, but walked him slowly back into the house, it wasn't his time.

I had a hard time sending the vet from our door as really I knew the inevitable would happen soon enough if things didn't change, but right back then, in my heart (but maybe not my head) I had to offer that glimmer of hope to our special boy, he had found the strength and courage to meet us all with a wag at the gate, he surely deserved another chance at life.

Ollie went on to enjoy another 5 months of good and bad times from that day. Carrying on with the epilepsy at the reigns, we'd be out on our walk and we'd look at him as he ran alongside our other 2 dogs, wagging his tail, tongue flying all over his face, happy as can be, seemingly without a care in the world, he was normal for those good times, and we look back and know he really did get another 'go' at being a happy, contented dog.

Not healthy by any means, but not unwell if that makes any such sense.

The 'episode' at the gate gained him almost 6 months of life, and every day we knew it could be his last.

Devastatingly, Ollie finally had to be euthanised later in that summer of 2007 when things really did turn very nasty indeed, and there was no way of stopping the seizures.They came quick and fast, gaining such venon and strength it was terrifying. He started to cry out in pain, and that day I really did see he had enough.

They say you know when the times comes to any goodbye, and to be honest I didn't believe that. I do now.....I saw it in his eyes that afternoon, it was as if he was saying it's okay, let me go. Enough is enough.

It took all our might to say goodbye to that special boy, one who'd touched our hearts so much, had changed our lives so dramatically, in good and bad. We had fought so hard for all that he respresented, the sheer fact still remains, to us, he will always, always remain in our hearts as 'Ollie The Wonder Dog' - known by that name by all of those who were lucky enough to have been a part of his life.

It's with this true story, of Ollie's fight with epilepsy, that we continue to fight for research into finding the genes that cause the disease, and for eduction into breeding lines and the eradication of dogs knowingly being used at stud, or are known to be proven carriers.

We also like to offer some thoughts, and knowledge to those owners whose dogs also have the disease. If not anything else we can offer hope and advice of things we found worked or didn't work when dealing with Ollie.

I am proud to be able to say that we have successfully put into place a fund in Ollie's memory, "Ollie's Fund". This fund is to be held at the AHT Newmarket and proceeds of all donations will help them research the genes which cause epilepsy.

Ollie may be gone, but hopefully some good can come from his lost fight, and subsequently his memory can live on in the fundraising efforts and the monies we can raise to help the scientists find what it is that causes this awful disease.

Please, if you are able to offer help into reesearch at the AHT, simply by taking a swab (in the dogs mouth) from any dogs known to have direct links to epileptic dogs, be that either siblings, or relatives, or even any unaffected dog over the age of 7, you an get in contact with the AHT research team. The swab kits are posted to you for free and are essential for their continued research.

You can email Bryan the co-ordinator directly at