Mid-Atlantic Border Collie Rescue

For me Jaff’s story is a sad one but I hope that through his legacy he and I can spare other dog owners some of the stress and pain that we went through in our journey together. My friend and MABCR founder, Sarah, contacted me in the spring of 2005 about a dog she had that was from the herding lines that I favor. I had a house full of dogs at the time and didn’t see how I could even consider it but I did think about him on occasion and would go back and look at his pictures.

Sarah had brought Jaff to a clinic and a trial that we both attended and honestly I didn’t know if I was up for the challenge. He was a tall, wild thing with a crazy rough tri-color coat. He acted like a 40 pound 2 month old puppy with the attention span of a gnat. I swore my next dog would be a petite smooth coat, so he was the antithesis of my dream dog. People at the clinic asked me if I was really considering adopting him. He was just that wild. He saw sheep for the first time at that clinic and it didn’t seem like he had inherited one iota of the amazing genes running through his ancestors lines. So I waited.

In June of that year, a dog I had in for training (and was trying unsuccessfully to buy) had to return home. I was pretty upset and not taking it very well. I thought more and more about Jaff and figured, why not? My husband, Phil, and I drove to Sarah’s on the Friday of 4th of July weekend. We arrived early and Sarah hadn’t had time to clean Jaff up. Well, he looked like he had tried to dig to China…with just his nose. He had a clump of dried dirt on the end of it and his white legs were covered in dirt too. I began to question my sanity.

After we walked him around her property and got acquainted a bit we decided to make the journey home. We took him out to the barn and bathed and brushed him. Of course, he turned out to be beautiful and within a month he had lost that huge rough coat and was stunning. People from MABCR saw him that fall and literally didn’t recognize him. He was just gorgeous!

To skip ahead a bit, Jaff really never came into his own in the herding sense so we decided to try him as a Therapy Dog. It was his true calling. He was so tall that he could just put his head on patient’s laps and he was so gentle and calm. Once he settled into our home and knew he was there to stay he just blossomed. I should say that we were his 5th home in less than a year. A new program started in our local library and Jaff became a R.E.A.D. dog. The kids absolutely loved to read to Jaff and he loved them back with kisses and tail wags. Most importantly, Jaff became my husband’s dog. All the other dogs were my herding dogs or my buddies and Jaff picked Phil. He went to work with him to the art gallery and whenever I went away for the weekend, Jaff stayed home with Phil.

He had become a fantastic dog and one you could be proud of. He was full of kisses and wanted to share them with everyone. He was famous for climbing up on you when you were sitting down, putting his paws on your shoulders, pushing you back on the cushions and kissing your face. He was a big baby.

In March of 2006 when Jaff was 22 months old I was in our bedroom getting dressed to go to work and I noticed him looking strangely at the floor. It was like he was watching a bug crawl on the carpet but there was no bug. Within seconds he had fallen onto his side and was having his first Grand Mal seizure. As you can imagine, it was horrifying. I knew immediately what was happening as too many of my friends had epileptic Border Collies. He only had one seizure that morning but we were shaken.

I began to research canine epilepsy that day and found a website that would become my Bible and support group for dealing with this disease, the Canine Epilepsy Guardian Angels. Our website is www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com.

After reading much of the insightful material I found a link where I could ask a real person, a Guardian Angel, any questions I had and they would get back to me personally. It was truly a Godsend when my GA, Vicky, responded to my email. She understood everything I felt. She had collies and one was an "epi". I finally got up the courage to ask her why so many of the dogs were referred to as Angels ie: Angel Duncan. She told me but of course, I already knew the answer. It was because they had died. I found out from the start that the herding breeds and Border Collies in particular are notoriously difficult to control.

Looking back, Phil and I realized the "quirky" behaviors that we had noticed for months with Jaff were actually what are known as focal seizures. He would stare up at the ceiling and then duck his head like it was coming down on him. Everyone I told about it would dismiss it as this or that but we were sure it was something significant. Epilepsy never crossed our minds.

Vicky and I corresponded for awhile. Once I have my mind set to learn about something I can really get obsessed with it and I was obsessed with "fixing" Jaff. She invited me to join a private, invitation only Web List for epi owners. It is for people like me that are committed to helping their dogs and interested in sharing information, giving support and receiving encouragement. It is like having a huge online family that is all working toward the same goal. I cannot tell you what those people meant to us during our 13 month fight with epilepsy.

Jaff’s seizures grew worse, more violent and more frequent and he began to cluster. This means each time he seized he had several in a row. We had to give him valium rectally to try and break the clusters.

I had wanted to take the most natural approach that I could with Jaff so I originally started with just acupuncture visits. We eventually tried herbal supplements, Chinese medicine, ear staples, Phenobarbital, potassium bromide, home cooking, gluten free diets and any combination thereof. For Jaff nothing even slowed him down. After reviewing his seizure journal that I so diligently kept I saw that he averaged a cluster of seizures every 11 days.

Unless, you live with an epi you could never begin to understand the constant stress of always waiting for the next seizure. Will it be the one that ends in status epilectus and kills him? Most often they strike in the middle of the night and waking to the sound of your dog in the throes of a Grand Mal is something you never forget for the rest of your life. Even a year later when one of dogs scratches in the middle of the night I wake up with my heart pounding and trying to find the light switch.

Our lives had come to revolve around the sound of timers for Jaff’s meds as Pb must be given strictly every 12 hours. We even tried every 8 hours to keep more of it consistently in his system. Yet he seized more and more. On April 25th of 2006 Jaff went to work with my husband as he often did. Phil called me around noon to say that Jaff had a seizure at the art gallery. He had given him his meds and administered the rectal valium (we were both pros at it by now). Jaff kept seizing and we agreed he needed to go to the vet so I left work and met them there. Jaff had seized on the way over and seized in the vets office. We had fought a tremendous battle for 13 months. We were tired and Jaff was tired. It was an absolutely heart wrenching decision but it was time to release our boy from this dreaded disease and help him to the Rainbow Bridge. We had lost 2 other dogs that winter and honestly I just could not believe it was happening again.

He never came out of the seizure long enough to regain full consciousness so we felt like we didn’t really get to say goodbye to our boy. Phil held him tight and we kissed him and loved him as he crossed the bridge. It was horrible. He wasn’t even 3 years old.

We were both devastated but my husband took it particularly hard. It was so difficult to see him grieve for Jaff like that. I just felt numb and cried for weeks. The last few weeks of his life Jaff had been seizing every few days and the founder of the Guardian Angels, Dr. Joanne Carson, was on the phone with me constantly trying to help get him under control. She was also there every day on the phone after we lost Jaff. She would call me every night to talk and let me cry and talk about it all.

I have had and lost several dogs but I think it is the caregiver relationship that you develop with an epi that makes it even worse. You pour your heart and soul into trying to fix them and when you fail it is devastating. You always wonder if you did one thing different or tried another vet or spent more money on different medications would it have made a difference.

After a few weeks had passed Joanne called me and asked if I would consider becoming a Web Angel to people that write into the website as I had only 13 months ago. How could I say no? They had helped me so much. I agreed to become a Web Angel to owners of Border Collies as that was where my experience was. Unfortunately, it is also the most prevalent breed represented in our web mail. So I am now a Web Angel and perhaps someday I will earn my wings to become a Guardian Angel.

The Angels take their jobs very seriously. We help people deal with the stress, give them advice on methods and medications that have worked for some of our dogs. We share information on how to get medicines at better prices and how to talk to your vet to get the best care for your dog.

Even if you don’t have an epi I encourage you to look over the website as there is some really good basic information, too. As you can imagine, nutrition and diet and keeping the environment as clean and natural as possible is very important to all dogs but especially epis.

I would encourage you to read the section on Hypothyroidism as it is an often overlooked and under diagnosed issue for many dogs. We are blessed to have Dr. Jean Dodds as an advisor to the Guardian Angels. She is an internationally recognized expert on canine blood and immune disorders, thyroid disease and nutrition. She is also one of the vets that recently rewrote the protocol for vaccine schedules for dogs.

Phil and I feel very strongly about always having a rescue dog as part of our pack and Phil missed Jaff so much that we decided at the end of the summer to look for a dog for Phil. We adopted Jetty on August 25th. It was 4 months to the day that we had lost our dear Jaff. Jetty walked into our lives and immediately became part of the family. He is so much like Jaff in so many ways that we feel like maybe he was sent by Jaff. We looked at so many dogs and yet my husband knew the instant he saw Jetty’s picture that he was the one.

Jetty just completed his Therapy Dog certification and will now carry the torch as a READ dog just like his older brother, Angel Jaff.

Tina and Phil DeAngelo
Joe, Jess, Jetty, Bryn and Dirk and of course, Angel Jaff