The topic of this article, very simply put is: head tremors, fly biting and circling behaviors in our beloved Bullies. Looking at the title, however, it becomes painfully apparent that these neurologic anomalies that we are seeing in the bulldog today fall into the “grey” area of veterinary and human neurologic disorders. What's even more interesting is that not only does the Bulldog experience these tremors but so does the dachshund, the boxer, the chinook and several other breeds. This syndrome is not new, it has been around for many, many years. It has been brought forward and awareness has been raised as a result of electronic mail.

First let me start with my Qualifications in this area:
My qualifications to discuss this syndrome stem from good old experience and a lot of reading and researching on the topic in general. I have been in bulldogs for close to 18+ years, had 10 litters and of those 10 litters have had 5 dogs/bitches who have exhibited 1 or more of these behaviors.
I have reviewed the scientific findings from articles I have pulled from the internet regarding seizures and epilepsy and unfortunately they address this syndrome in one or two sentences. I will share the information from the current literature and then share my experience, including what I did to minimize the behaviors along with how well it worked on each dog.

Let’s start with some general definitions taken directly from the literature:
1. Epilepsy: “a chronic condition characterized by recurrent seizures. It is a disorder of the brain where abnormal electrical activity triggers further uncoordinated nerve transmission. This uncoordinated and haphazard nerve tissue activity scrambles messages to the muscles or your dog’s body and the coordinated use of muscles is then inhibited.” The characteristic seizure activity seen in epilepsy are classed as

2. Seizures: involuntary contraction of muscles, caused by an electrical storm in the brain that can be everywhere at once and can be seen on EEG. Partial seizure where the abnormal electrical impulses begin in a small area of the brain and may or may not migrate to other areas of the brain.

A. Focal/Partial seizures:
Two Grades of Severity:
Simple focal seizures (minor motor or focal motor seizures) when consciousness is preserved. The area of the brain that is affected is the area that controls movement. Usually the face is affected, resulting in twitching or blinking. This is usually limited to one side of the face. The dog is usually alert and aware of it’s surroundings. I believe this is the category that the Head Tremors fall in.
The important concept or key takeaway is that there is no change of consciousness in the dog during a head tremor episode. they respond when you call their name, they can walk, eat, do their business with no consequence.

Complex focal seizures when consciousness is altered– ie the pet is staring off into the distance but you cannot gain their attention. This seizure will originate in the area of the brain that controls behavior and is sometimes called a psychomotor seizure. The dogs consciousness will be altered and he may exhibit bizarre behavior such as unprovoked aggression or extreme irrational fear. He may run uncontrollably, engage in senseless, repetitive behavior or have fly-snapping episodes where he appears to be biting at imaginary flies around his head.

B. Grand Mal (tonic-clonic) seizures – which begins with an involuntary contraction of all skeletal muscles and loss of consciousness.

3. Paroxysmal Dyskinesia is a movement disorder. There are brief attacks of the symptoms with the dog appearing perfectly normal between the episodes, the same way there are discrete attacks of seizures in epilepsy. Dyskinesia refers to an abnormal, involuntary movement or posture. Movement disorders usually originate from the deeper areas(the basal nuclei) of the brain. These areas are responsible for translating the commands from higher brain areas (e.g get the ball) into movements (e.g. stand up, begin trotting, etc). The distinction in the human between seizure activity and dyskinesias is based on looking for abnormal electrical activity on the surface of the brain with an EEG. By definition, seizures have abnormal EEG activity, while paroxysmal dyskinesias do not. People with paroxysmal dyskineasis often experience a decrease in episodes as they age while epileptic people and dogs will worsen with age.

Let’s talk now about Head Tremors in the Bulldog.
In my experience, head tremor activity in the Bulldog usually starts around the age of 12 months old and can go until the dog reaches around 3 years old. The motion you will see will almost always be a fast side to side rocking motion (ear to shoulder – ear to shoulder) occurring in rapid succession. Occasionally I have seen an up and down motion (like they are shaking their heads to say yes) but for the most part it is the same fast rocking. The way it was defined to me was that the neuron cluster that controls a certain motor function, in this case head movement, begins to fire continuously. The reason for this rapid fire is truly unknown.

I have not experienced any drooling or other body part involvement. It has always been isolated to the head. When you call the dogs name they can stop the bobbing motion for a few seconds and will look at you, then it will kick in again. They can move their heads and watch you move from place to place, they can even walk around etc. Once again the important concept or key takeaway is that there is no change of consciousness in the dog during a head tremor episode. they respond when you call their name, they can walk, eat, do their business with no consequence. The Head Tremors are more of a nuisance than anything else.

Causes or Triggers:
We believe that there are several triggers that cause the Head Tremor.
The First is Developmental: Head tremors seem to happen during the developmental cycles of the dog. Remember in a bulldog the bone structure takes about 3 years to mature completely - the head being the last structure to fully mature. During this time the bones and nervous system are constantly drawing on the calcium and vitamin D stores of the body so they can develop properly. I believe that we stop feeding our puppies calcium containing products way to early and this is one of the components or stressors that feed this syndrome.

The Second seems to be related to anesthesia and trauma:
We have noted that many of the Bullies that suffer from head tremors seem to start within six months of a surgical procedure, ie - spay/neuter surgery. What we don't know is if it is because the anesthesia is blocking the nerve group from absorbing calcium ions at the genetic level or if these dogs have just been under for too long a period of time.

The Third seems to be related to Hormaonal Activity.
We have one girl whose head tremors when she experience progesterone/LH spikes during season time.
A bitch will be pre-season or just come into season. Males head is bobbing for all it is worth.
A bitch is post whelp, in the milk let down phase of lactation, and trying to nurse a litter of hungry pups. In this case the bitch has had surgical trauma as the result of a C section, is in pain, is not eating and is trying to make milk. This, in my opinion is different than the

The head tremors occur Most often when the bully will be sleeping very soundly and all of a sudden the head will start rocking – usually from side to side very quickly- occasionally you might experience one bobbing up and down. This sudden head motion will cause the bully to awaken suddenly. An episode will last from 15 to 30 seconds, sometimes longer. It may stop on its own and then as the dog lays down to go back to sleep the head tremor will reoccur.


When you see this What Do You Do?
First and foremost DO NOT PANIC!!!!

Our Experience:
The first time we experienced this phenomena was post whelp– I panicked. I grabbed the puppies off the bitch and almost caused one to aspirate. When I gained a little composure I called a breeder friend of mine and explained what I was seeing. She told me that it was not uncommon and I should try to get some sugar, honey, Karo syrup into her. The thought was that the blood sugar had experienced a sharp drop at that point in time thus stimulating this type of a response. We gave the girl the Karo and low and behold the tremors stopped within a couple of seconds.

The next time we witnessed this behavior – was a little different. The bitch was not post whelp. However, she was 3 days prior to coming into season. She had been sleeping on the couch. We gave her honey. It stopped. Started up 15 minutes later we repeated the karo. Same result. We gave her frozen yogurt, same result. This went on for almost 24 hours with the length of time between episodes varying from 10-15 minutes to as long as a half hour. Needless to say we packed her up and went off to the vet who said: this is not unusual in this breed.

Normally we don’t do anything. Epilepsy meds have proven to be ineffective for the most part, phenobarb has too many side effects. The Veterinarian stated that they suspect it has something to do with the growth activity at this age or stress which can cause a sudden drop in glucose levels in the blood. There can be different things or circumstances that can trigger an episode. Such as a traumatic experience, and injury, hormones, etc. In this girls case we have determined that it is a hormone trigger, specifically at the time of a progesterone spike associated with ovulation. The vet recommended Calcium and Taurine supplementation twice daily. As you know calcium is one of the minerals needed for healthy nerve growth and electrical conductivity, Taurine is an amino acid that works with Calcium. The Vet said she may grow out of it.
So, we took that information and we asked for a referral to a neurologist. This specialist did all of the neurological tests and determined she was fine. She ordered ionized calcium levels along with several other specific blood tests. The results all came back normal. She recommended an MRI to determine if there was an injury or tumor. We declined this step at the time, due to finances but decided if she showed any other neurological symptoms such as falling down or aggression, which could be indicative of an injury or tumor, that we would come back to do the MRI. Six months went by on the Calcium, Taurine supplementation to which we added a heaping tablespoon of Ricotta cheese every morning and every couple of days a heaping bowl of frozen vanilla yogurt with honey in the evening. No incidents. The day we bred her – in at the time of the progesterone spike indicating ovulation that we were waiting for– she had one mild episode then nothing for the entire pregnancy. The episodes started up the second week of lactation when the calcium bolus given at the time of the C-section was gone and 6 hungry puppies were pulling on her calcium/glucose levels. Five months have since passed and she has been just fine – no episodes.

My Recommendations:
1. If your dog exhibits this head bobbing behavior:
a. DON’T PANIC!!! This is NOT a Life Threatening Situation!!!
Panic will only worsen the situation by adding additional upset and stress on the dog.
b. – give them a bowl of ice cream or frozen vanilla yogurt with honey to get the situation under control. If you don’t have any of those then Ensure, Pediasure, Karo syrup all work because of the sugar and or calcium content. Liquids work quicker because they are absorbed into the mucosa of the mouth. More than the food itself - the idea is to change the dogs focus.
2. Call your veterinarian and advise of the situation. Schedule an appointment for a visit and have your vet do a health screening with blood work. Odds are the blood work for calcium and sugar will be fine.
3. Do NOT allow any veterinarian to treat head tremors as epilepsy. The outcome may be devastating. I know of several cases where the Veterinarians treated with Valium, Dilantin or Phenobarbital. All they succeeded in doing was sedating the bulldog so much so that the outcome was they got sick to their stomachs, vomitted, aspirated and developed pneumonia. They ended up in oxygen tents, with tracheotomies and were near death. There was also a very high emotional as well as financial price tag attached to the miss-diagnosis and treatment for the wrong disease!!!
4. Keep a record of each episode, every time one occurs – describe it in great detail, time it occurred – how long, how frequent. Give this info to the vet when you see him.
5. IF they do not get any worse than the head bobs – don’t do anything else but observe and document. If the behavior changes in any way – call the vet, you may need additional assistance at this point.
6. More often than not by 3 years of age they stop and never return. However, on occasion they may persist - then you need to look at all of the supplements you are feeding. A friend of mine's bully had severe head tremors, we discovered that the glucosamine product she was using had an inferior by-product in it that the dog was allergic to. Stopped the product and the tremors stopped.

Two other behaviors I would like to mention briefly are the fly chasing and the circling behaviors. Fly chasing is just that, the dog seems to be chasing and trying to catch imaginary flies. Again, if you call the dog by name he will stop and look at you then resume the behavior. The other is circling. This looks like VERY slow motion tail chasing. Usually in the same direction each time it happens. IF you call the dog they will stop to acknowledge you then start up again. In this case, I go over and give my girl a nudge and she stops and resumes whatever she had started to go outside to do. This seems to happen outdoors only, so I sometimes wonder if bright sunlight is the trigger mechanism for her. In any event – both of these behaviors are neurological events. Basically harmless. Both of these dogs are on the same calcium and taurine supplementation. The supplementation has basically eradicated the fly chasing in the one dog and the episodes of circling are fewer with the other dog.

In closing I would like to say that these behaviors are basically just annoyances to you and the dog. You can equate them to the finger roll behavior or shuffling gate of a person with Parkinsons Disease. I would never discourage you from having the dog checked by a Veterinarian. Remember, every dog just like every person is different and they react differently to certain stimuli and medications. I suggest you try this regimen and if the behavior continues see your veterinarian for more extensive testing and follow up.

Bibliography:
Chinook Seizures by Dennis O’Brien, DVM, PHD
http://www.canine-epilepsy.net/chinook/chinook.html

Vetinfo-4dogs
http://www.vetinfo.com

Canine Epilepsy
http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/CanineEpil.htm

Dr. Paul Kinnear, DVM 718-948-3331