Why is my dog collapsing, choking, and turning blue after walks?

Hello. I am so sorry for your worries with Joey. This must be so worrisome to experience. My thoughts are that Joey either has some swallowing disorder or a primary issue with his esophagus, or he has some neurological dysfunction of his esophagus related to Myasthenia gravis. The other possibility is you are seeing seizure activity in Joey. The cyanosis is very concerning so I do highly recommend discussing this with your veterinarian. He can decide if any testing is required to diagnose what the underlying cause might be. It would be very helpful if you could video an episode so your veterinarian can see exactly what might be going on. Good luck with Joey. He is absolutely adorable. Thanks for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I am very sorry to hear about Clouds. I would definitely recommend a visit to your vet for an exam and bloodwork. It sounds as though this could be a seizure, and if they are occurring this frequently he needs treatment. The vet will do an exam and discuss the episodes with you and decide if they feel seizures were taking place (take a video if you see this happen again), and they will want to do bloodwork to rule out some possible causes of seizure such as liver disease or infection, and can discuss starting medication to help stop these episodes.

It sounds suspicious for a seizure . Kayla could have a seizure for a few reasons. The most common is epilepsy but toxins, liver disease or brain tumors can also cause seizures. I would recommend to take him into the vet asap for a neurologic exam and bloodwork. This will help to narrow down what caused this. Keep him quiet until his visit and encourage him to drink water. I hope this helps!

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. It's possible that he may have had a stroke or blood clot secondary to his heart disease that traveled to his brain. Or, if he was regularly having collapsing episodes due to his heart (syncope), what you saw may have been one of these that was especially severe, as this is a common cause of sudden death in dogs with severe heart problems. If you want to try to get a more definite answer on what the cause of death may have been, you would need to have an autopsy done, called a necropsy in animals. Your veterinarian should be able to let you know where you can have this done, if it's something you want to pursue. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss.

Poor Alfie! It can be very difficult in some cases to distinguish syncope from epilepsy based on how the dog looks during a collapsing episode, because both problems can look very similar. Syncope is caused by a heart problem - occasionally we can see it with congestive heart failure, but most often it's due to a cardiac arrhythmia. Sometimes we can hear an abnormality in the heart beat during the exam, but not always - sometimes it only occurs during a fainting episode, which can make it hard to diagnose. Some tests that may be helpful at this stage would include chest x-rays and an ECG. If these are normal and the diagnosis is still uncertain, a device called an event monitor can be used to actually record an ECG during an episode - this would give a definitive answer.

I'm so so sorry that Freddy is having these episodes. I am sure they are very scary. It is difficult to know whether he is having a fainting episode or a seizure. If you can, I would try to catch the episodes on video so that you can show your vet and maybe they can determine which one it was. Fainting can happen from heart disease, abnormal electrical activity of the heart, low blood pressure. Seizures can happen from epilepsy, brain tumor, infection around the brain or organ problems like liver disease, low blood sugar. Unfortunately it can take a lot of testing to figure out the cause so you can know how best to treat Freddy as there are very different treatments based on what the real problem is.

This is very concerning, especially in a young dog like Baby Girl. A seizure is possible, although typically stiffness or convulsions are seen and it usually takes awhile to recover from a seizure. A syncopal episode is another possibility - this occurs when there is an arrhythmia or other heart problem that causes fainting. I would recommend seeing a veterinarian right away - they can listen to her heart and may recommend taking an x-ray or checking blood work. Seizures or heart disease in a young dog can be fatal.