Duke

Something pretty scary happened on Friday. Since we were leaving town, Dan took our two dogs, Jazzy and Duke, out to the kennel they stay at when we're gone. He had just arrived when Duke started having a seizure. Dan hurried and put Jazzy in a kennel and then laid on the floor with Duke, our cocker spaniel. The seizure lasted about 90 seconds. Duke's eyes rolled back, his body was seizing, he was foaming at the mouth and he was peeing everywhere. When he started coming out of it, he growled at Dan. Eventually, Duke started responding to Dan's voice and little by little he got better.
Dan loaded Duke into the car and headed to the vet. And then he called me. He asked me to meet him there. Dan's voice was shaky and he told me that he first thought Duke was dying. As I drove to the vet's office I couldn't help but get teary. We had just lost our other dog, Emma, a few months before, and I still struggle with it. I didn't want there to be anything wrong with Duke, who is just a few years old.
But when I saw Duke, he seemed fine. He recognized me right away, and although he was still really lethargic, he seemed OK. We took him in\to the vet to get examined, and we were told he was probably still coming out of the seizure. They didn't seem too worried about what had happened and said it's actually pretty common. They thought the fact that the seizure was relatively short was a good thing, and all the symptoms Duke had experienced were common with a seizure. They also guessed that it was probably Duke's anxiety about going to the kennel that caused it. So instead of taking him back there, we decided to take him with this weekend. He's been great since then...maybe a little more cuddly than normal, but still good.
The good thing about taking him with this weekend is that we got to see how he reacted to my niece. We're soon going to be bringing a baby home and Duke has never been around kids. It would be nice to know that he is going to be OK with the experience.
We had a bit of a rough start. While he wasn't at all threatening to my niece, Kayla, he still didn't know how to react. At one point, he was up in her face, smelling her and he barked. It scared her and she started crying. I took him downstairs for a while, but later brought him back to see how he'd react. We sat across the room from Kayla and just let him get used to seeing and hearing her. From then on, he was perfect. Most of the time, he'd keep his distance, but he also let him pet her and he licked her hand. It was really a relief.