thanks for the condolences and prayers. his epilepsy was a little different than most. with the complex partial seizures he didn't physically seize, but had hallucinations and became disassociative. we noticed the signs when he was younger. he would growl in his sleep and seem like he was in a fight for his life, we would wake him up and be fine. it got to where he would continue for a few seconds after he was awake, and he would keep growling and seem unfamiliar with where he was, then snap out of it. it eventually got to where it would happen while he was awake, and anything could set it off, smells, colors whatever. i was giving him ear drops one day and i saw his pupils dilate. i immediately went to grab his throat because i knew what was next, and he managed to sink a fang into my arm. after about 30 seconds he snapped out of it and started wagging his tail. i was considering putting him down right then, but my wife wanted to try more with the vets. a couple weeks later it happened again when i was reaching around him, but i had been on guard the whole time so he didn't bite me that time, i kicked him and hit him back a couple times till i could grab him by his neck good. laid on top of him with a head lock for a few seconds and he stopped growling and started wagging his tail. at that point i knew he had to be euthanized so we set up an appointment. he was a pretty substantial dog and i knew my wife wouldn't be able to fight him off. after the first incident we kept him in his cage while i was gone. when we were getting ready to take him to the vet my wife got down on her knees and started petting him. she started crying and i knew it would set him off with how much he had advanced, so i told her to stand up and back away, she didn't and he went into one. he got her a little on her arm, i kicked him away, he lunged at her again and i grabbed his collar and i fought with him for a minute. the other dog ran under my feet and it caused me to fall back pulling him right to my face. he looked at me and immediately looked back at her trying to follow her. i just knew i was going to get my face mauled, but whatever sets them off is what they focus on.
such a shame considering his normal character, kinda like baby huey. he had never even growled at another dog, but did act as a good guard dog with unexpected people and such. he was the first dog i ever got trained to guard my food! he wouldn't even try to touch it, but wouldn't let the cats anywhere near it, lol looking back he never really acted with the typical character of the breed, and had anxiety that progressed as he got older. a woman from argentina contacted my wife on face book with a pedigree that went about 10 generations further than the one we got, and there was severe inbreeding with one dog a few generations back from magnus. we saw that dog in his pedigree, then a few back from there you could see how bad the line breeding was. she had kept track of puppies coming from this line, and she saw about every other generation in his line had about a 50% rate of the dogs having this issue. the breeder stopped answering calls, and had moved and started selling under his parents names, go figure.
