I saw this thread and had to reply.
My Bailey, a rough Collie, age 2 years this April 7th has had seizures since mid September 2006, not very often but this month he had 2 seizures.


Each time I hurriedly wrote down everything that happened down to his extremely pale, pale gums. Without going into all the detail that encompasses the symptoms of the seizures he has in this post, due to the fact that I noticed every little thing, typed it up and presented it to the vet. It helped him rule out certain things that could be wrong and narrow down to extremely minute possibilities after a physical examination. Cerebellar Cortical Abiotrophy (aka CCA), a neurological disease which is treated the same way they treat common Epilepsy, with Phenobarbital as it is not cureable.

From the minute detail I gave him he is certain it's not a brain tumor, which is good, if I look on the bright side. A brain scan will just confim the diagnosis of something that is not cureable and treatable with nearly the same meds as epilepsy. Bailey presents with a few more symptoms that just common epilepsy and given that Collies are one of the breeds listed as possibly prone to coming down with CCA. I just hate the effects of the Phenobarbital but he hasn't had all that much time to get used to it. But with this last seizure the frequency and duratiion is coming around faster and longer. On the Phenobarb. he seems like an old dog instead of one just about to turn 2 years old and he's irritable which is out of character for him.