Thought I would post this here to share with others who may be going through the same thing.

I have a JRT who started to have seizures at 6 yrs old straight out of the blue, I had never seen one before and at first they are a frightening thing to witness and if you are reading this then no doubt your dog is still living and probably had more and you want to find answers.

First thing to remember is that when your dog has a seizure try not to panic, I know its hard at first but from one that’s become accustomed to them, the actually seizure is nothing to worry about just make sure the dog is safe and in no position to injure itself, I use a cushion or pillow to manoeuvre the animal into a comfortable position and let it ride out its seizure. With my dog this usually lasts 3-5 minutes and in this time I talk to her gently, not that I think she can hear me but you never know, it’s just a natural comforting thing to do.

once the seizure begins to stop , i.e. the paddling of the legs and gnashing of the jaw slows down before stopping then I get out of the way 'sharpish' as the dog then tends to go into a trance and I found out once in this state she is totally unaware of her surroundings and if disturbed will become aggressive in a protective and frightened way, best to leave them well alone and let them come around in peace, I usually keep the door ajar and peep through to keep an eye on her until she comes around, this is normally after about 10 minutes when she's back on her feet and after she's stopped roaming round in a disorientated way.

Then I call her name gently through the gap in the door and if she responds then I know she's out of her seizure and I enter the room slowly, I never startle her as she will be frightened and could attack as she has done on a couple of occasions.

once she spots me and realises who I am , I get a greeting like I’ve been away for a month and after the initial meeting she'll be on edge and not able to sit still for about 20 minutes , in this time she'll be hungry as a horse and clear her bowl of any food.

This has been happening for the last 6 months and in that time I must have experienced over 30 seizures.

In the onset we took the dog straight to the vets and after numerous tests and hundreds of £'s later we were still no better off and the seizures continued , they seemed to think it was the dogs liver or a shunt but tests also revealed this wasn’t the case.

After months of getting nowhere and the irregularity of the seizures I started to see if there was any pattern to them and low and behold there was, I'm not saying this will work for everybody but if one person benefits from it then it’s worth the write up.

My dog was used to a balanced diet and also tit bits we used to give her from our plate and she would go potty for a salted peanut or two or most types of fruit.

I started to make notes of what she had eaten the day before any seizure and soon realised that if she stayed on her balanced diet (she east Frolic semi dried food) then she was fine.v But she was then missing her titbits and it's hard not to give them a nibble of something they have become accustomed to love and I found out by falling into this trap would cause the dog to have a seizure. Even when I thought I was giving her healthy things like pieces of fresh fruit, these would trigger seizures as would any fresh beef products or Tuna. Even food containing traces of sugar (which probably accounts for the fruit) or salt would trigger a seizure.

All this was strange as she had eaten these things for the previous 6 yrs without any effect.

Luckily by this trial and error process I also found out she can eat boiled or roasted chicken with no salt added and she is fine, so at least she can a handful of that every few days and loves it more than ever.

Forgot to mention I also found out 'choc drops' for dogs also sent her into a seizure but the usual dog treats containing chicken or even beef although I tended to stick to the chicken even though she's never had any seizures from eating beef dog products but would if she ate lets say steak or any type of burger.

I hope the above helps others as I know what a nightmare it can be and the feeling of hopelessness and frustration as the dog goes into another seizure feeling there’s nothing you can do about it but all is not lost as I found out and with a bit of trial and error you may hopefully get a similar result.

I read forums and dog websites for hrs on end and although I got some useful information none gave me any answers and I had never read anywhere that fruit apart from raisins etc could harm a dog, it was just something I stumbled upon, maybe its just my dog it effects but the likelihood is that another dog somewhere will have similar symptoms.

I never mentioned vegetables because she doesn’t like them but that may also be worth taking into consideration if your dog is keen on them.

Knowing what I know now, I would suggest cutting out all food apart from a proper balanced diet from a reputable dog food manufacturer, as I mentioned my dog eats Frolic and has no effects from this whatsoever and see what happens and you never know you might strike lucky like I did, although the dog won't thank you for it as it misses all its tasty treats it became accustomed to.

Firstly the seizures became much worse no matter what food she was on and in the end she had to be sent to a referral hospital for tests, luckily Lucy is insured as the cost came to nearly £2000.

The good news is that after plenty of tests and a brain scan they could find nothing wrong with her apart from some scarring on her brain which she could have been born with or is the result of banging her head during a seizure but not according to the consultant bad enough in her opinion for the dog to seizure, this was good in so far she can now go on Phenobarbital as for a long time they had suspected liver damage as a previous vet had put down some abnormal results around 10 months ago hence the reason she could not go on the pheno originally.

So although the news was good I was still no where nearer to finding out why the seizures were occurring, then the answer I'm pretty sure was right in front of me. As the seizures usually occurred after she had eaten, I put it down to eating titbits and food humans eat so that was stopped and like I said in the original post restricted her to what I thought was a healthy balanced diet of dog food only.

Then I couldn’t believe I had been so dumb as the only food I never investigated was her supposedly healthy balanced diet, on further inspection her food (Brand called frolic) consisted of nothing more than 4% meat, bulked out with shite, loaded with loads of sugar and salt then coloured and preserved with manufactured chemicals, it was like a happy meal for dogs.

I just took for granted that dog food was all the same and healthy for the dog, I couldn’t have been more wrong and it’s not as if Frolic was cheap.

Now she's on a new diet consisting of a decent food with no artificial colourings and preservatives Arden Grange I think it’s called without having to go into the kitchen and have a look. And she's now a completely different do and getting back to her old ways like growling at the wife lol.

Even her coat and skin looks a lot healthier, I thought she had a slight flaky skin condition as she used to shed what looked like dandruff when u stroked her but even that has now stopped.

I know she's on the Phenobarbital and that is stopping the seizures but I’m pretty sure it was her dog food causing them as even the pheno has a bedding-in period and she never had one once while she was getting up to speed with them.

I even mentioned it to the consultant and she agreed it could well be the colourants and additives in the frolic but she wants Lucy to stay on the Phenobarbital for a few months first and seizure free b4 considering taking her off them.

I'll keep you guy's up to date with events as they occur as I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem and thanks for the previous replies. Have a happy new year too.