Thyroid
Disease
Is Fido
acting strange?
It could be his thyroid
By
Dana Cox
When Robin Simpson adopted Tater, a 11/2-year-old
bull terrier, she knew she’d face
a few challenges. On top of being deaf,
Tater had already lived in three or four
homes, and had developed behavioral problems.
Much to Robin’s surprise, however,
the first six months were a breeze. The
young canine immediately settled in with
her other dogs and cats, and his behavior
needed only very minor correction.
Then the nightmare started. “During
sleep, Tater would suddenly jump up, and
make a sound I can only describe as a
roar,” recalls Robin. “He
would attack whatever was closest to him,
whether myself or one of my other pets.”
Once awake, Tater acted as if nothing
had happened.
The episodes became more frequent until
they occurred almost nightly. “Everyone
I talked to said I should put him down,
that he was dangerous and nothing could
be done. But I couldn’t give up
that easily on this animal.”
While Tater slept in a crate at night,
Robin, a veterinary technician at the
time, scoured the internet for clues about
Sudden Onset Rage Syndrome. She learned
that rages can actually be a form of seizure,
and a search of an epilepsy site revealed
more startling information – some
seizures result from a thyroid condition.
The site led her to Dr. Jean Dodds, a
California-based veterinarian and founder
of Hemopet, a non-profit animal blood
bank.
Dr. Dodds has been studying the connection
between abnormal behavior and canine autoimmune
thyroiditis for years. Her database contains
some 2,000 cases and she regularly consults
for vets and clinical laboratories. Dr.
Dodds believes thyroiditis is often misdiagnosed
or missed altogether. She wants to increase
awareness of the early signs of the disease
in both the veterinary community and among
animal guardians, something she hopes
will reduce unnecessary euthanasias.
“If these animals are not good companions,
they’re going to end up being put
to sleep or in the pound, shuffled from
pillar to post, and it’s not their
fault,” says Dr. Dodds. “It’s
a genetic defect, like all autoimmune
diseases.”
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Published
in the April/May 2004 issue of Animal
Wellness
|
