The call came in at 2:17 a.m. on a Sunday. Marcus, a four-year-old Golden Retriever, was paddling on his side in the hallway, jaws chomping at nothing, legs rigid. His owner could barely get the words out:
“I think he’s dying. Please tell me what to do.”
He wasn’t dying. He was having a seizure, and those three minutes felt like an hour. What his owner did during them — and in the week that followed — shaped Marcus’s entire treatment plan. That’s the truth about seizures: they’re terrifying to witness, but a simple, rehearsed plan protects your pet, your fingers, and your veterinarian’s ability to actually help. This is the plan I now hand to every client before they ever need it.
First, Know What You’re Looking At
Most people picture the dramatic version: full-body convulsions, loss of consciousness, paddling legs. That’s a generalized seizure — an electrical storm sweeping across the whole brain. But seizures can be much quieter. A focal seizure starts in just one region, and the symptoms depend on what that region controls. Waffles, a six-year-old Beagle I saw last spring, spent two months “snapping at flies” that weren’t there before his owner filmed it and we realized his jaw movements were focal seizures. Some episodes last mere seconds, and owners miss them entirely.
It also matters what a seizure isn’t. Fainting episodes (called syncope, usually heart-related), vestibular spells that make older dogs stagger and tilt their heads, and normal dream-twitching during sleep can all masquerade as seizures — or vice versa. That distinction changes everything about diagnosis and treatment, which is exactly why the video guidance later in this article exists. A good overview of the signs is available from,[1] and it matches what I see in the exam room every week.
Your Emergency Action Plan: What to Do When the Shaking Starts
The do list, in order
- Look at the clock. Note the exact time the seizure starts. Duration is the single most important number you’ll report.
- Clear the danger zone. Push away furniture, block the stairs, and shut other pets out. A seizing animal can’t protect itself, and a confused housemate may react badly.
- Dim the lights and quiet the room. Turn off the TV, ask kids to whisper. Reduced stimulation can help the brain settle.
- Slide a cushion under the head — a folded towel or pillow — without holding your pet down.
- Start filming with your phone.
- If it runs long, cool them down. Prolonged muscle activity generates heat; a damp cloth on the paws and ears helps.
- Time the recovery too. Note when your pet seems “back to normal.”
Two thresholds deserve to be memorized, and current emergency guidance backs both: a seizure lasting longer than five minutes, or more than two seizures within 24 hours, means you stop waiting and get to an emergency hospital. A seizure that won’t stop — called status epilepticus — is the one scenario where the seizure itself becomes dangerous and needs injectable medication, which is why in-hospital care exists.
The never list
- Never put your hands in your pet’s mouth. The old idea that animals can swallow or choke on their tongues is a myth — they physically can’t. Reaching in is the number-one cause of owners getting bitten, sometimes badly.
- Never pull the tongue or try to hold the jaw shut.
- Never restrain the body. You can’t stop a seizure by holding someone still, and fighting the contractions can injure muscles or you.
- Never give oral medication mid-seizure. Your pet isn’t swallowing normally, and anything placed in the mouth can be inhaled into the lungs.
- Never leave your pet near water, stairs, or high surfaces during recovery. Post-seizure pets are often wobbly and temporarily vision-impaired.
Timing and Filming: The Two Things That Change Everything
I’ll admit something here: I’ve changed my mind about video. Early in my career, I told owners a written description was fine. Then I kept watching pets get worked up for seizure disorders they didn’t have — and miss the ones they did — because “shaking” describes a dozen different events. Now I tell people their phone is the most valuable diagnostic tool in the room, a point emergency clinicians echo in their.[2]
Here’s what to capture: the whole body, the face and jaw (those chomping or fly-biting motions are diagnostic gold), the onset if you catch it, and ideally the clock in frame or a spoken timestamp. Between episodes, keep a seizure log: date, duration, description, and anything unusual beforehand — stress, a diet change, heat, a missed medication dose. Patterns emerge fast, and they guide treatment decisions.
One more thing people don’t expect: the aftermath. The post-ictal period — literally “after the storm” — is the brain rebooting. Your pet may pace, circle, seem blind, hide, or eat like they’ve never seen food before. It can last minutes or stretch past a day. Record that duration too, and keep them safe and confined while it runs its course.
Dogs and Cats Tell Two Different Seizure Stories
Epilepsy in dogs: often written in the genes
When a dog between six months and six years old starts seizing, and everything else checks out normal, we usually land on idiopathic epilepsy — “idiopathic” simply means we can’t find an outside cause. It’s the most common chronic neurological disorder in dogs, affecting roughly 0.5 to 5 percent of them, and it runs strongly in families. Labradors, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Beagles, Border Collies, and Belgian Tervurens are overrepresented. That was Marcus: normal bloodwork, normal exam, classic age and breed. Triggers vary, but stress, transitions between sleep and wakefulness, and even flashing lights are reported culprits. Genetic research is moving this field forward — variants like ADAM23 have been linked to epilepsy in Belgian Shepherds — which may eventually bring screening tests.
Cat seizures: usually a symptom, not the disease
Cats flip this script. True inherited epilepsy is genuinely rare in felines; a seizure in a cat is far more often the flashing light of something else — toxin exposure, kidney or liver disease, an overactive thyroid, a brain tumor, or infections. This is why a first feline seizure typically earns a more aggressive workup: bloodwork first, advanced imaging like MRI if the answer isn’t in the lab results.
And please hear me on the most preventable cause I see: permethrin toxicity. A few springs ago, a two-year-old tabby named Olive arrived tremoring and seizing hours after her owner applied a leftover dog flea spot-on to her neck. Dogs tolerate that concentration; cats can’t metabolize it. Many cats do recover with prompt hospital care, but Olive’s owner spent three days regretting a ten-second decision. Never use a dog flea product on a cat — check the label every single time.
After the Storm: Treatment, Rescue Meds, and One Common Confusion
Whether to start daily anticonvulsants is a genuine judgment call — some of us treat after a single long or clustered seizure, others watch and wait for recurrence, weighing seizure frequency against medication burden. The long-standing options like phenobarbital now share the stage with newer drugs such as levetiracetam and zonisamide, and imepitoin is approved for canine epilepsy in Europe and Australia. Every dose is individualized — that’s a conversation for you and your vet, never a formula from an article.
Many owners of cluster-seizure patients are now trained to give rescue medications at home — rectal diazepam or intranasal midazolam, prescribed and demonstrated in-clinic. It’s one of the most meaningful shifts in recent emergency care, detailed in the.[3]
On CBD: I understand the appeal completely, and I never dismiss owners who ask. Colorado State University trials showed modest seizure reduction in some dogs, but dosing, product quality, and drug interactions remain unsettled — so loop your vet in before adding anything to a seizure patient’s regimen.
One last clarification, because the internet muddles it: a “seizure dog” usually means a service dog trained to respond to seizures in a person with epilepsy — fetching help, alerting family, positioning themselves to break a fall. Whether dogs can truly predict seizures before they start is still scientifically debated. It’s a beautiful job description, just a different article.
Your takeaway is simple: you cannot stop a seizure, and you don’t need to. Your job is to keep your pet safe, start the clock, hit record, and know the numbers — five minutes, or two in a day, means go. Save your emergency hospital’s number in your phone tonight, keep a log, and double-check every flea product label in the house. Being that prepared, unremarkable kind of vigilance prevents more seizure emergencies than anything I can prescribe. Every animal deserves someone who stays calm in the storm they can’t control — and a few minutes of preparation now makes you exactly that person.
Sources
- MedVet's seizure guide — medvet.com
- after-episode guidance — fvpetemergency.com
- 2024 review on acute seizure management in dogs and cats — pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov