Royal Veterinary College Canine Epilepsy Research

*UPDATE 7th May - RVC PET EPILEPSY TRACKER*

The problem causing the app to not load up was thankfully a simple fix and has now been rectified! Our app developer has recommended users force the app to close, then re-load, and they should be able to login successfully again.

Let us know if you encounter any further problems following this, and thanks for your patience and support for the app as ever!

*RVC EPILEPSY TRACKER*

We are aware some users have experienced challenges accessing the app in the past few days. We are working with our app developer to resolve these problems as soon as possible and will update as soon as we know more, and will hopefully have it up and running again very soon!

Many thanks for your patience and continued support of the app 🐾

*****LAST CALL - SURVEY CLOSING MONDAY 28th APRIL*****

We have now received over 6000 responses to this survey - phenomenal 💥

This is your last chance to take part and tell us about your experiences with your Frenchie or Dachshund - whether they’ve had IVDD or not - please share! 🐾

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Calling all Dachshund and French Bulldog Owners!

Do you currently, or have you previously, owned, a Dachshund or a French Bulldog?

We would love to hear from you about your dog!

A vet student in our team, Daniel Selimi, is conducting research on the spinal health in these popular, much-loved breeds.

We are interested in hearing from ALL current and previous Dachshund and French Bulldog owners, regardless of whether they have experienced spinal problems in their dog(s) or not.

If you would like to take part, please follow the link below or scan the QR code in the poster to take part in our short 10-minute survey; we really look forward to hearing from you!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/spines

🧠 Important research update on epilepsy for French Bulldog owners from our colleagues at University of Cambridge

Seizures in a Frenchie? Idiopathic? Think again.

Epilepsy is familiar territory for a general vet and if you have a patient with seizures between 6 month to 6 years and otherwise normal, it is more than likely idiopathic epilepsy (IE). The Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force (VETF)* use this as their Tier 1 level of confidence for IE.

A group at Cambridge University have just thrown a very well considered spanner in the works. What happens if your patient is brachycephalic?

The retrospective study investigated dogs seen for seizures and categorised them into brachy or non-brachy. They looked at a few things but most interesting was the actual cause of seizures in the '6 month to 6 year and otherwise normal' category - the ones we mortals would assume were idiopathic.

The results: an astonishing 1 in 3 brachycephalic dogs actually had structural causes for their seizures! For reference, all the non brachy patients idiopathic (as expected). Pretty strong.

Their recommendations: ‘’…MRI of the brain and CSF analysis should be strongly considered in brachycephalic dogs who otherwise satisfy a tier I confidence level diagnosis of IE, independent of the interictal neurological examination.’’

The paper is not open access but here is the link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jsap.13857?saml_referrer

We’ve had over 1400 responses to our spinal health survey in the past week - huge thanks to all who have completed and shared! 🐾

Please help maximise our understanding by continuing to take part and share with your networks, we hugely appreciate your support 💜

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/dachshund

Have you ever owned a Dachshund or a French Bulldog? 🐶

A veterinary student at The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) is conducting research on the spinal health in these popular, much-loved breeds.

Regardless of whether your dog has experienced spinal problems or not, The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) want to hear about your experiences of owning these breeds - past or present!

Complete the survey here: https://bit.ly/4keIpSg

Calling all Dachshund and French Bulldog Owners!

Do you currently, or have you previously, owned, a Dachshund or a French Bulldog?

We would love to hear from you about your dog!

A vet student in our team, Daniel Selimi, is conducting research on the spinal health in these popular, much-loved breeds.

We are interested in hearing from ALL current and previous Dachshund and French Bulldog owners, regardless of whether they have experienced spinal problems in their dog(s) or not.

If you would like to take part, please follow the link below or scan the QR code in the poster to take part in our short 10-minute survey; we really look forward to hearing from you!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/spines

🐕 New research from the RVC has identified a set of key recommendations to further improve canine health and welfare research in the UK. This includes the need for more efficient grant applications, stronger collaboration between funders and research institutions and the prioritisation of research that has direct welfare benefits for dogs. These findings provide funders and researchers with a framework to enhance the impact of future research and ensure funding is directed where it can most effectively improve canine welfare.

Battersea The Kennel Club UK

➡️ Read more: https://rvc.uk.com/canine-welfare-research

🧬 Please help our colleagues at Cambridge by sharing this post with your English Springer Spaniel owning friends, to help unravel the genetic causes of epilepsy in the breed!

🐾 Many Border Collies who took part in RVC epilepsy studies over the past few years have already contributed their genetic swabs to the Cambridge (formerly AHT) team who are generating promising results in this breed too.

⭐ A new paper as a result of a collaboration between Royal Veterinary College (Rowena Packer and Nicole Regan) and University of Cambridge (Eleanor Raffan and Anna Morros Nuevo) has been published today ⭐

🐶 One of the most common conversations with caregivers of dogs with epilepsy is their frustration around the side effects of anti-seizure drugs, including many dogs developing an insatiable appetite, leading to a range of challenging behaviours including scavenging from bins and constant begging, even when their regular meal size is unchanged

❓ We set about quantifying this effect using Cambridge's 'DORA' - Dog Obesity Risk Assessment - questionnaire to unpick what might be going wrong for many dogs and caregivers. We sampled a cohort of dogs with idiopathic epilepsy, and compared them to a control population of thousands of healthy dogs, to identify risk factors for greater appetite and corresponding overweight and obesity

💡 Our results revealed that dogs with idiopathic epilepsy receiving anti-seizure drugs had significantly higher food motivation in comparison to healthy dogs – they had increased interest in food, were less selective about food, were more interested in food between meals, and wanted more food than usually offered.

🤷 In response, caregivers of dogs on medication put greater effort into restricting how much their dogs ate, particularly of human food. Despite this, these dogs had significantly greater fat mass.

🥓 More than half of caregivers of dogs with epilepsy always used treats to administer their dog’s ASD medication and did not compensate for it by reducing the dog’s main food ration. Given the epilepsy treatment often involves medication two or three times a day, every day, this has the potential to increase calorie intake substantially, an issue compounded by epileptic dogs also being less active.

🤝 It is extremely important for vets to advise and support owners to monitor and manage their dog's weight - supporting them in how to effectively restrict calories (e.g., low calorie treats for drug administration and cutting back on their base diet) and promoting activity where possible, balancing negative side effects of anti-seizure drugs such as lethargy against benefits of reducing seizure frequency and/or severity

🙏 Huge thanks to Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and Morris Animal Foundation for funding this research

For more information, see our open access paper published in Vet Record today: https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/vetr.4907