"Matthew's Story"

As written by Kathy Lorentzen and Posted to the ESSGroup

Note:  Matthew's litter was breed by Susan Still and myself, April Harry, his story is tragic and sad, other than what is contained in this article written by Matthew's owner I do not have personal knowledge of his circumstances, if you have questions contact his other breeder, Susan Still,  April

My daughter, Melanie King, and myself, Kathy Lorentzen, have been through something in the past week that we feel should be shared with the Springer community. We want to be certain that the true and complete story of what happened to Matthew is told, in the hopes that the pain and tragedy that we experienced might save someone else from having to go through it.

Matthew has lived with me (Kathy) since he was nine weeks old. He was always a sweet, friendly puppy, well adjusted and sensible. He began to go to dog shows when he was six months old and was successful from the start and enjoyed them immensely.

That being said, there have always been things about Matthew that I felt were just “slightly left of center”. At four months old, he developed a “head tilt” and his head always listed to the left whether he was sitting or standing, and even sometimes when he was moving. We explored the possibility of it being ear related and could never find a cause, nor did he ever have ear infections or even “dirty ears”. During the summer of 2004, while still a puppy, he began scratching, and to make a long story short, he was finally allergy tested in November and found to be allergic to a number of foods, grasses, trees, molds, etc. He was treated on and off with small amounts of steroids, which controlled it very well. During the winter he was fine, and then his itching escalated again when things began to bloom in the spring of 2005. The intent was to get him through the growing season and then do a series of allergy shots on him this winter to desensitize him. We never got to that.

Matthew was a dog that “stared’ intently. I always found it odd. He would sit and stare at me (with his head tilted). Sometimes out in the yard when I called him he would just stand and stare for a prolonged period of time without responding, then he would suddenly come over. The staring was something that I had never experienced in any other dog and I thought it was unsettling, but I could never really put my finger on why.

Matthew had a few minor episodes at dog shows where he greatly over-reacted to something that he perceived “in the distance”. It happened twice in the ring (both times he suddenly became afraid of the judges as they stared at him and walked past him from some distance, out in the center of the ring, but there was no growling and he recovered as soon as I was able to let him move around and get close up to them.

Two times this spring while at dog shows, once on the table, and once on the photographers stand, Matthew “saw” something in the distance and reacted by getting very stiff, his hackles stood up, and he began growling loudly. Both times he recovered when I got him down and moved him around. He snapped out of it and acted fine.

Please understand that these “episodes” were very out of character as this was a sweet, kind dog who was very people friendly and completely non aggressive. He was a dog that went immediately to strangers and got along very well with other dogs, including puppies. He was highly social, having traveled with me since he was three months old. Therefore, these episodes were very puzzling. Both my daughter and one of Matthews’s breeders, Susan Still, were aware that these things had happened. Melanie and I were uncomfortable with it but had no explanation, as otherwise Matt was a sweet, easy going dog that lived in my house and slept in my lap in the evenings.  He was extremely well mannered and very gentle and he and I loved each other tremendously and had a wonderful bond.

Matthew was always a good eater and totally non aggressive about food. He went in his crate, ate his food, and came out of his crate. On Thursday, August 4th, when I put Matt in his crate with his dinner, instead of eating it he stood over the dish growling softly. This was my first real warning sign that something was wrong. He did not eat, and after the other dogs were finished, I let everyone out and Matthew came out of his crate a bit “high” and growled at Millie (my six month old puppy bitch, whom he normally loved) for a couple of seconds, and then he seemed fine. I had no idea what the problem was, but it was a red flag. Friday morning, he ate his breakfast fine with no incident. Friday evening, he ate part of his dinner but was definitely not normal, he was growling and stiff when he came out of the crate for a minute but then went to normal.

At this point I had no idea what was happening. I didn’t like any of it, but I couldn’t figure it out as the rest of the time the dog was okay. On Saturday morning, my husband John was up first and I heard him start to feed the dogs. And then I heard Matthew growling. I immediately went downstairs, and found that Matt was in his crate, standing over his food dish, and he was “roaring”. John said it started the second he asked the dog to go in the crate. I walked over and opened the crate door. In a very slow motion, completely stiff, erect manner, Matthew walked out of the crate (it was very robotic), over to the doorway between the dog room and the laundry room, and stood there staring at me with his eyes totally dilated, every muscle in his body so tight that one foot was curled off the ground and his tail was curled up over his back, and he was making the most horrible sound I have ever heard. There was no snarling or showing of teeth and that stayed consistent throughout this entire thing.  He seemed to be paralyzed in this state, and we all stood there helpless. Talking to him had no effect. After about two minutes, he seemed to come down slightly and he turned and stalked out the dog door, still stiff and still growling. I followed him outside and watched him “come down” and back to normal in the next few minutes.

John and I were horrified. What we had just witnessed was the first of many of these episodes that Matthew would have over the next six days.

At this point I had a terrible time frame problem as I had to leave to go to Indiana on Sunday morning to meet Doug Johnson and Don Sturz and put on our Sporting Dog Excellence Workshop, which ran from Monday through Thursday.  Melanie was driving from Georgia also on Sunday to meet me to help at the workshop. I had no idea what was going on with Matthew and I made the decision to take him with me to try to figure it out. I couldn’t ask my husband to be responsible for him at home and I didn’t have the time to do anything else. I had no choices here. I was totally rattled and confused by what was happening to my dog.

From this point on Matthew was never really himself again. He had periods of normalcy, where he was calm and quiet, but he became consistently worse as the days went on. Melanie and I struggled to manage him in our room at the Holiday Inn. We had four other Springers with us as well, and it became increasingly difficult to manage Matthew as he would not tolerate any of the other dogs except for Millie. This was totally out of character for him as he had always been dog friendly and willing to get along. He had periods where he would lie in his crate growling even if none of the dogs were near him. If the other dogs were loose in the crate we had to cover him up as he would growl when they came near him. He never charged the front of the crate at a person or at another dog, nor did he ever snarl and show his teeth.  Other times he would be calm and quiet in his crate.

There were two levels of behavior going on. He appeared to be having true rage seizures sporadically-four people witnessed these (myself, my husband, Melanie and Doug Johnson) and we all totally agree that it was seizure like activity and the dog had no control whatsoever over what was happening to him. I have never seen muscle tenseness like what the dog experienced during these seizures, it was so painful to watch. His tail would go forward over his back like a bad terrier tail, his neck was up high and stiff, one front leg would curl off the ground and he would be trembling and his eyes were dilated to the point that I could see his retinas and they would shine bright red. And always he was “staring” at me during these attacks, roaring and staring and if I backed away from him, he would follow me in that stiff, slow motion manner. I truly believe that somewhere in there he knew that something horrible was happening and he was begging me to help him.

In between the actual episodes, he would be quiet and exhausted and if out of his crate he would simply lie at my feet. I could always touch him and pet him but Melanie was never able to touch him all week without having him stiffen slightly and growl at her. When I would take him outside, he would over-react to every dog or person he saw-he would posture and his hackles would go up and he would growl. I could control this to some point and if I got him away from everything he would be fairly normal and we could go for a walk without incident. Again, this was completely out of character for this dog. He had never been a “high, hormonal, studly” sort of dog at all.  After last Saturday morning, Matt never ate normally again. He ate sporadically and drank little. His urine seemed normal, but he seemed constipated, his stools were small and very hard.

I never knew what would happen when I let Matt out of his crate. Sometimes he would come out fine, happy to see me and put his lead on and go outside.  Other times he would come out growling and posturing, but not in what I would call “seizure” mode. A few times he came out so tense and stiff that I would hook a lead over his head and maneuver him back in his crate-he was definitely not in control of himself during those periods. On Thursday August 11th at noon when I went to take him out, I opened his crate door and he came out in full seizure mode. This was the most intense and longest episode so far. I was terrified both of the dog and for the dog. I always backed slowly away from him when he was having one of these, and as I did it this time he again stalked me and stared in my face. I hooked a lead around his neck and slowly maneuvered him into his crate and closed the door with the lead still on. I went outside and Doug Johnson was in the parking lot and I asked him to come with me back in the room. He stood by the door and told me to go open Matthews crate and back away. Matt came out still in full seizure mode. Doug told me to slowly back around the corner and go into the bathroom, which I did, and the dog stalked me and stood directly in front of me, cornering me in the bathroom. Nobody moved, Doug spoke to Matthew quietly and finally he started to “come down” and swung his head around slowly and looked at Doug, and then together we watched the dog come out of the seizure and I was able to take the lead off him and put him back in his crate.

Melanie and I drove home from Indiana (she came here to see her grandparents) that night. We arrived here late. I was not able to take Matthew into the house as when I let him out of the van and he ran around the front yard, he would go to the front door (which is glass) and when he saw Melanie and John on the other side he got stiff and growled. He did it also to Corrina, who was his best dog friend, on the other side of the door.  So he stayed in the van Thursday night.

With the permission of his co-owner, co-breeder, Susan Still, Matthew was euthanized on Friday, August 12th, at noon. I managed to give him two zanax on Friday morning and it brought him down to the point that he could be euthanized quietly. Melanie and I held him, and each other, and cried while he went to a better, more peaceful place.

We do not know what happened to Matthew. Our best guess is that he was neurologically challenged. It certainly appeared to be some sort of epilepsy. What we do know is this-this was NOT a case of a dog that just “went off” in temperament. This was not just the nasty, dominant, aggressive, pushy behavior that our breed can exhibit. Matthew was not an aggressive dog and we hope that everyone will understand that we feel that what happened to Matthew, and the behaviors that he exhibited, were completely beyond his control. He knew, and we knew, that something was horribly wrong, and we were all helpless.

Our friend Dr. Cindy Wheeler came to my veterinarian’s office this morning to autopsy Matthew and collect tissue samples to be sent to a pathology lab and for DNA samples. If anything unusual is found we will make the information public.

We are exhausted and devastated by the ordeal we have been through with Matthew in the past week. We blame no one; we wanted his true story to be told, in the hopes that it may help our breed in the long run. If it does, Matthew will not have died in vain.

Sincerely,

Kathy Lorentzen and Melanie King

Follow up August 13, 2005

Cindy Wheeler autopsied Matthew this morning at my veterinary clinic. Her finding was that the right side of Matthew’s brain was 2/3rds rotted away.  She also found that his optic nerves and optic chiasm were atrophied. She took samples for histopathology. At this time we do not know the cause, we must wait for the pathology results. When those results become available, we will make them completely public.

Kathy and Melanie

Received April 10, 2007