Moved again, UPDATE

Ok, so we’ve moved again and are now in a tiny town.  We live only a few blocks from the library, and have no fence around our yard.  But Pip’s happy.  We share our room with my sisters, but it’s the attic and it’s all ours.  Pippin’s convinced that the room belongs to him, and he glories in the comparatively large space.  This room is probably three or four times larger than the one we were in.  No, it’s not exactly a huge room for three humans, the other was small.

And now to Pippin news-  I guess the really big thing that’s happened lately is that Pip has started having seizures.  We don’t know if he’s really epileptic, but it seems so.  However, Mom has done a lot of research and we are now certain the Pippin is a Celiac doggy.  John Symes, DVM has a great deal of interesting research that he’s conducted on Celiac being related to epilepsy.  Here’s an article that summarizes his research, and this is his site.  Now Pippin’s on a completely grain-free diet, all raw meat and no cooked.  Since he’s been on it, he’s had no seizures.  Yay Pippin!  He’s had some pretty scary ones too…

The worst one was at night.  His convulsions woke me up, and it was too late to move him from my bed to the floor.  So he convulsed and urinated while I waited for him to finish so I could clean up and we could go back to sleep.  By this time I was getting used to them, and they no longer scared me.  But that night, as he began to come out of it and started the part where he looks around in bewilderment, a very strange thing happened:  He gave a growl, then from a laying down position lept straight up a foot into the air with a wild snarl and sprang from the bed onto my sister’s bed then run into the wall with a crash!  I was horrified to say the least.  He was growling in a more ferocious manner than I’ve ever heard from him before.  Still running with his nose in the wall he zoomed sideways into the corner.  I couldn’t see him, but I could hear his shrieks of aggression and the crashing and banging of him into the wall.  I had no idea what to do, entirely paralyzed with horror.  In an emergency, I seldom lose my head, but this time, I had not a clue what to do.  You’re not supposed to restrain a dog having a seizure, because you may hurt them.  But he was slamming into the wall!!  Would my restraining him hurt him more or worse than running into the wall?  Not to mention that he might bite me in his violent state.
After a few seconds of the seeming convulsions in the corner, Pippin turned around and ran into the wall on the other side of the room and fell into the space between the wall and the bed and he continued to make those horrible snarls and shrieks. It was at this point that my sisters finally woke up and I sent them to wake up my parents. My Dad has some experience with epileptic dogs and I was completely shaken. I had images of broken legs as I turned on the light to the room to see what had happened. It was hard to see him in that small space, but clear and dark on the wall was a large splat of blood that was dripping down the wall like a horror movie. And he was still convulsing and snarling.
Turned out that the blood was from his toenail. He had entirely ripped it out, and it was bleeding heavily. But he no other injuries, except bruises. I was very thankful. But we still don’t know what caused that strange behavior, and if it will happen again. You can now imagine my relief that his seizures seem to have been cured.

So, I think that’s the majority of news around here…  Stay tuned though ’cause I’m back in business!