How you doing Brownie?

How you doing Brownie?

I had not seen the Scaly-Naped pigeons in my back garden since I cut down the MacArthur Palm trees last year.
This morning however, two of them came by to perch on the palm tree nearest the patio, to pay Brownie a visit.
Animals are so instinctive.....they knew that my boy was not 100%.
I think they missed him chasing them this morning, so they came by to check in on him.

A couple of months ago, Mr. BrownBerts had started exhibiting a strange squirmy rolling around on his back ritual which made me laugh at first.  I had made sure that he was flea-less and tick-less and that his skin was not dry.  I had also mentioned it to the vet as well.

As I searched the internet to figure out what was going on with my boy, I came across several YouTube videos with dogs doing the exact thing.
After careful reading and research, I realised that he was indeed having some kind of seizure.
My boy Brownie was experiencing a kind of seizure which looked more like him rolling on the floor trying to scratch his back.
There he would be, lying down quite comfortably, when all of a sudden, up he jumps as if stung by a bee and starts a wild rolling around on his back.
I didn't relate his behaviour to a seizure in the beginning because the seizures my dogs had had over the years were quite different.

He was his usual high-spirited self in all other areas....still eating like a horse....chasing Brazen & company, checking for critters in the garden etc.
Then earlier this week, he started having an episode every 10 minutes or so.  I became quite concerned.

With Monday being Whitsuntide Bank Holiday, the vet office was closed. Tuesday we headed down to the office.
I was told that the episodes could be as a result of high excitability, stress, poison in the system or a reaction to a strong chemical cleaner, etc.
He was placed on Phenobarbital (30mg) for 10 days.
After the very first pill, the seizures reduced to only one per day, and now today he has not had a single seizure.


Early yesterday morning while still trying to find the bok choy munchers, I saw one of the dreaded cane toads in the garden bed.
I placed a bucket over the frog and called one of my friends, Paul to help me relocate it from the property.
It was afterwards that I remembered that Brownie had been digging frantically in a corner of the garden bed trying to get at something that was hiding there. 
I put two and two together, and now I am certain, that he was sprayed by the frog with those awful poisonous toxins.

Don't worry he is getting the best care ever.
After a small portion of my homemade soursop icecream as a treat, he is resting peacefully under my desk as I type this, so his recovery is well on the way.