Mudi Directions: The Epilepsy Holiday Express Train

All Aboard

The end of 2023 and the start of 2024 brought the sad news of more seizure occurrence. Rather than ringing in the Christmas holiday and the New Year with health and happiness, several more owners had to face this holiday season with seizures in their beloved Mudi.

From December 2023, until just after the New Year, I became aware of 6 more occurrences of seizures. While I only just learned of these cases, that does not mean they all recently started to have seizures, some have had seizure occurrence for more than a year.

Some disclosures of epilepsy diagnosis are private, and the owner usually does not want to make their name or their Mudis name public information, however they have always allowed anonymous discussion of the case details. Some owners over the recent years have chosen to make their Mudis epilepsy public, either on social media, or a public website. Even though it is already public information, I usually contact the owner to let them know I am making a new epilepsy post and I plan to include their Mudis case information (with their nickname or anonymous as they prefer), I sometimes also ask if I can use a photo, this has never been a problem, with one exception. I will honor ‘no discussion’ requests of publicly available information as much as possible, however, as I deal with statistics, data analysis, research and presentation of valuable data and information to the Mudi community, a Mudi cannot simply be excluded from data and its related discussion, as if it did not exist, especially as the information was already made public by the owner themselves.

Altogether 6 new cases of seizure occurrence were publicly and/or privately disclosed in December and early January. In most cases the public disclosure was on social media or a website.

In many cases, I have received veterinary documents that confirm the diagnosis of Idiopathic Epilepsy (IE). Please understand that it is not possible to share veterinary documents or videos with anyone as they do not belong to me.

These are just the most recently revealed cases, as during the last year there were other cases of recurrent seizures as well. The current count of confirmed and unconfirmed cases is 84, with 54 being confirmed cases. It does happen that some unconfirmed cases eventually become confirmed when veterinary reports, test results, seizure videos or other corroborating data or documentation is finally provided. Almost 20 Mudis have died from seizures or epilepsy related issues since January 2000.

References and links*¹ to further information are provided at the end of this post.

First Station: Denial and Responsibility

One thing that stands out from these 6 additional cases, is the lack of reporting by even one of the breeders that created these Mudis, it was only the owners that seemed to think it was important to make the seizures their Mudi was having, known beyond themselves.

There have been allegations by some breeders ‘‘that the seizures are not the fault of the parent from their kennel, but it is the other parent of the litter that is responsible’’, which is a handy excuse when the other parent just happens to come from another kennel. This claim is simply not possible as it would mean that epilepsy was caused by a dominant gene, therefore one parent would have to be an epileptic to produce epilepsy in their puppies – this is how a dominant gene works. Also, if it was caused by a dominant gene, there would be more epileptics born in every litter they produced. Furthermore, there would be epileptics everywhere if it was dominant – as now exists with merle and NBT/natural born short tails – as merle and NBT are caused by dominant genes. This means that the IE that occurs in the Mudi is caused by recessive genes*², which are carried and given by each parent of an epileptic, not just one parent. But an even more ridiculous version of this excuse is when the breeder claims “that seizures are not inherited*², but whatever is happening comes from the other parent”, which is again conveniently not from their kennel. Shifting blame to the other parent/breeder, is an easy excuse to allow further breeding of their own dogs, rather than correctly sharing the responsibility to remove close relatives from the gene pool.

Breeders are also quick to claim that the epilepsy seen in the Mudi cannot be inherited*² as there are no other close relatives with epilepsy or close relatives that have produced it further in their lines, or in other kennels that also use their lines. If that was the case, I would not be writing this article. Relative/family connections will be covered later in this post that will show this excuse, or belief, is also very inaccurate.

Another commonly given cause for seizures by breeders is a brain tumor*³, but why are brain tumors better to have as a cause of seizures than epilepsy? Why would a kennels lines being more prone to brain tumor development, be better or more acceptable than having a line more prone to epilepsy? There is no reason a brain tumor should be more acceptable as the cause of seizures than IE, knowing that the prognosis*⁴ of a brain tumor is less likely to have a happy ending or to be more affordably and/or successfully treated, than IE. Additionally, statistics illustrate that more than five dog breeds*⁵ show that they are especially predisposed to developing brain tumors. If all of these 84 Mudis have brain tumors causing their seizures, they will be adding the Mudi to that list of predisposed to brain tumor breeds tomorrow. Plus, while brain tumors can occur at any age, they typically happen in dogs over the age of 5*⁶, whereas almost every one of these 84 Mudis was under 5 when the seizures were first seen. Also, research has shown that brain tumors occur in approximately 15 of every 100,000*⁷ dogs, that is equal to 0.015% occurrence rate, meaning 0.015% of the 13,000 Mudis in my database = 1.95, if we round that up to 2, it means that 2 of the 84 Mudis with seizures could have been from a brain tumor. The brain tumor excuse simply does not add up, but even if it did, why is a brain tumor more acceptable than epilepsy?

Head trauma is also a popular alternative cause for seizures and while head trauma*¹² is possible, dogs have thicker skulls*⁸ than humans, giving them greater protection against injury. Less severe head trauma, such as concussion*⁹, does not cause seizures. Head trauma injuries, serious enough to cause seizures, are not going to go unnoticed by the owner as there will be external evidence*¹⁰ such as skull fracture, jaw fractures, bite wounds, soft tissue injury on the head, bleeding from the eyes, nose or ears, or bleeding inside the eye (ocular hemorrhage). A dog will also exhibit other common signs*¹¹ of serious head injury such as lethargy, reduced consciousness, a dazed or disoriented appearance, paralysis of one or more limbs, abnormal or different sized pupils, vision deficits or blindness, seizures, circling, pacing, head pressing on objects, or other manic behavior, abnormal respiratory patterns (such as heavy or rapid breathing), or abnormal heart rate or rhythm. Surely any owner would take a dog with any of these outward signs or symptoms immediately to a vet. Also, most dogs do not have seizures*¹² following serious head injury and when it does occur, they most often happen immediately after the injury and in the early post trauma period*¹³ (24 hours to one year after the head trauma). Serious head trauma left untreated by immediate veterinary care, typically progresses, and leads to permanent brain damage or death*¹⁴, which is certainly not going to go unnoticed. Consequently, there will be a paper trail from a serious head trauma occurrence in the form of veterinary bills, which I have never seen provided by any owner or breeder.

Walnut poisoning is also a popular seizure cause excuse, and while moldy walnuts can cause many symptoms, only one of these is seizures, and once the walnut mold toxins are cleared from the dogs system, there are no more seizures. The diagnosis of IE only occurs after a dog has had more than one occurrence of seizures from an unknown cause, whereas walnut poisoning is a known cause, whether due to consumption of moldy walnuts or black walnut leaves, shell, bark or wood. (In Hungary and Europe, English Walnut trees*¹⁵ (Juglans regia) are commonly grown. Black walnut trees (Juglans nigra)*¹⁵ are mainly grown in the USA and Canada.)

The newest popular excuse given by breeders for seizures is the use of particular flea/tick preventatives*¹⁶. There has been quite a lot of scientific investigation into these treatments, and they have been shown to only cause seizures in a very small percentage of dogs that are prone to having seizures, but they do not cause idiopathic epilepsy. Adverse reactions*¹⁷ can be seen as soon as 15 minutes, up to 12 hours after administering the product. Most adverse reactions are mild and go away on their own, with most mild to severe clinical signs resolving within three days. Severe adverse reactions do require veterinary care and with prompt treatment the recovery is expected to be full. This means that if there are any seizures caused by these products, it is a one-time event that will not reoccur as long as you don’t use that product or similar products again. In the case of idiopathic epilepsy, seizures will eventually reoccur. In five of the six currently covered cases, the use of these specific flea/tick treatments was not reported to be the cause of the repeated seizures. In case ‘Four’, the owner did not mention what was the cause of the seizures.

With this level of breeder reporting, denial and alternative reason blaming, it’s no wonder the occurrence of seizures is continually growing, and occurrences will only head down this track faster and faster like a runaway train. And what should be equally concerning to owners and breeders is that besides epilepsy, there are other health issues quickly burning up the tracks.

Case Exploration Station

These most recently disclosed seizure cases require some further exploration so those in the Mudi community can be aware of the correct information, not false details, or rumors, for their own personal needs and verification. I decided to assign a case number, in no particular order, as the ‘name’ of the Mudi, to give anonymity to all of these Mudis, rather than just to those that requested it, that is the fairest way to proceed, as the facts of their case are what is most important here, not their real name.

Case ‘One’: ‘One’s’ epilepsy diagnosis was disclosed on social media. Someone also added a note about their seizure activity to a public website. I have spoken to the owner of ‘One’ in great depth. I have detailed veterinary documents of their diagnosis of epilepsy from unknown cause (IE), from a well known veterinary clinic. There is no mention in the detailed veterinary documents that ‘One’ was given flea/tick medications that are suspected to cause seizures, before or after their seizures began, ‘One’ has only used a Foresto*¹⁸ collar and Milprazon*¹⁹ wormer which are long ago and widely used treatments not known to be causative of seizures*²⁰ – these and only these flea/tick/worm treatments are clearly written in the vet documents. Unfortunately, the public disclosure of ‘One’s’ diagnosis of idiopathic seizures met with the usual rude treatment of the owner, both publicly and privately. It continued with one or more individuals privately contacting other Mudi people with the goal of discrediting the owner, claiming that the owner was not mentally stable, they used flea/tick products known to cause seizures, as well as many other drugs the dog was being given for other health issues, as the real causes of the seizures. Again, I have the detailed veterinary diagnosis that ‘One’ is being treated for epileptic seizures without known cause. An MRI was not done, and does not need to be done, as it will mainly rule out a brain tumor as the cause, which due to the facts given previously above, make a brain tumor much less likely to be the cause of their seizures than idiopathic epilepsy. However, if the breeder or anyone else is so determined to insist that an MRI is the only thing that will convince them this is IE and not a brain tumor, then they should pay for the MRI themselves. You should bear in mind that the diagnosis of IE was correctly made for many years before MRI was invented, and the correct diagnosis of IE can certainly still be made today without performing an MRI. Another reason to avoid the high cost of an MRI is that time will tell if it is a brain tumor or not, as a brain tumor will almost surely progressively worsen, rather sooner than later, and be supplemented by many other symptoms that do not accompany IE.

Case ‘Two’: ‘Two’s’ seizure activity was discussed on social media and also with the breeder. However, the pedigree name of ‘Two’ was not disclosed publicly by either the owner or the breeder. I do know the pedigree name of ‘Two’ and was told that they have since died from seizures.

Case ‘Three’: The seizure type behavior of ‘Three’ was told to me by the owner, I do not know if the breeder was informed. ‘Three’ is currently under observation to see if the seizure type behavior increases or worsens over time, the owner has agreed to keep me informed of any further developments.

Case ‘Four’: Seizure information about ‘Four’ was mentioned by the owner during a social media discussion, the owner said the seizures were not caused by epilepsy. I contacted the owner to discuss the seizure event, but this owner would not tell me anything more as they felt I would not listen to them because of the direction the social media discussion had taken. They could not be more mistaken, I listen carefully to every owner or breeder that has/had seizure occurrence in their Mudi. Not all seizures are caused by epilepsy, there are other causes of seizures, I am well aware of that. I hope that this owner will decide to talk to me eventually, because I am interested, and I do care about them and their Mudi.

Case ‘Five’: This case was reported publicly by the owner. However, I was told about this case by others in the Mudi community. I contacted the owner and they sent me the veterinary documents confirming the diagnosis.

Case ‘Six’: The owner wrote about ‘Six’s’ seizures on social media hoping ‘Six’ would survive the latest cluster episode as their seizures were not responding to pharmaceutical control, and the owner asked family and friends to keep them in their thoughts and prayers as they fought to save ‘Six’. Someone also added a note about their seizure activity to a public website. This was not ‘Six’s’ first cluster seizure event, and as much as we all hope it will be their last, the harsh reality of this very serious type of epilepsy – clusters, is not optimistic. The owner did contact ‘Six’s’ breeder while treatment in the veterinary clinic was underway, to inform them of the severity of this second seizure event, which came 5 months after the first. The breeder was sympathetic to ‘Six’s’ current state but said no more and made no mention to the owner of any previous health issue or injury concern ‘Six’ may have had. The owner has since been told that before they bought ‘Six’, ‘Six’ had a serious head injury and that was the cause of the seizures. If that is true, then the breeder sold ‘Six’ to an owner knowing the dog had suffered a serious head injury without informing the new owner of this before purchase. If in fact head trauma did occur, then the breeder should have a vet report showing the treatment given (minimally a skull x-ray and office consultation exam receipt) which a serious enough to cause brain damage injury, would surely have required. There are very expensive veterinary care bills ‘Six’ is building up that the owner had no idea they might face if indeed ‘Six’ did have prior head trauma. I have very detailed veterinary documents for ‘Six’ and the diagnosis is idiopathic epilepsy.

One other interesting detail about ‘Six’ is tail length, ‘Six’ has a very short tail, was sold as NBT, the pedigree is marked NBT, there was only one white of each sex reported in the litter and both were told to be NBT, so there was no accidental misidentification, however ‘Six’s’ DNA test indicates ‘Six’ is long tail. Evidently ‘Six’ was docked and the owner was not informed of that either.

Station For Family Connections

As mentioned above, I have pedigree data which shows the connections between relatives that many breeders are so eager to deny exists.

Also, four of these 6 cases have a 4 or more complete generation pedigree behind them, the other two cases have almost 3 complete generations, which means empty pedigree Mudis are not responsible for these 6 cases.

As I have covered family connections for those featured in previous epilepsy articles, I will mostly focus on the family connections of these 6 recently revealed occurrences of seizure activity. However, I will include connections to other Mudis with seizures when they are relevant to these cases. I will refer to the current cases by randomly given unisex theme names to allow discussion, while protecting anonymity. Using word names will also help to alleviate confusion between numbers and names. The connections listed here are not the only family connections found on the pedigrees, they are simply the closest and easiest to describe without a pedigree outline.

The assigned names for these 6 are as follows (alphabetically): Express, Freight, Local, Rails, Rapid, Tracks

Tracks and Rails: share one parent (= half siblings)

Express: has a parent that is a littermate to the shared parent of Tracks and Rails (meaning Express is directly related to Tracks and Rails by having littermate parents)

Freight and Rails: a parent of Freight is also a grandparent of Rails

Express: a parent of Express is a littermate of another parent that produced an epileptic (meaning two littermates each produced an epileptic and Express is one of them)

Local: has a littermate with epilepsy; one of the parents of Local also has an epileptic littermate; Local shares the same grandparent with an unconfirmed epileptic

Rapid: three of Rapids great-grandparents are also grandparents of other epileptics; one grandparent has a littermate that produced an epileptic

Other Notable Connections:

One grandparent of three of these cases is also a parent of 1 epileptic and grandparent of 5 different epileptics = 6 closely connected cases from the same Mudi
One grandparent is also grandparent to 3 other epileptics and is also great-grandparent to 3 in this current group of 6
One of the 6 has the following grandparent connections: 3, 4, 4, 6 meaning that each of the 4 grandparents are connected to 3-6 different epileptics as either a parent or grandparent
One of the 6 has a parent that is connected to 4 other epileptics as either a parent or grandparent
One of the 6 has one parent that is connected to 2 cases and the other parent to 3 cases as parent, and their 4 grandparents are connected to between 3 and 6 cases each as parent or grandparent

The existence of close family connections is undeniable in these 6+ cases. The close family connections are equally undeniable between the other Mudis affected with a seizure disorder as well. Everyone is free to accept the evidence for inheritability of IE or not, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice.

Station Without Benefits

In addition to the emotional and physical pain, and monetary cost of epilepsy already suffered by these Mudis and their families, not only on public forums and private channels, there is also the disclosure of epilepsy on a public database for various Mudis, on which several people other than the owners have taken it upon themselves to enter seizure occurrence information for Mudis they did not own or breed. It is unlikely that diagnostic vet reports are in the possession of these individuals either, but even with official evidence, such sensitive information should never be entered by anyone other than the owner, this is a hard line that anyone with a moral compass would not cross.

The public database was promoted as being created for “so many benefits it will provide to the breed”, that is available to anyone that makes a free account, to add information to any Mudi in the database (you do not have to own or be the breeder of any Mudi to enter or change its’ data). The database is only available in English and a few other languages, however it does not translate well to Hungarian using standard online methods, which puts non-English speaking Hungarians at a severe disadvantage when it comes to seeing what may have been entered to their Mudis by others, as well as limiting their successful navigation and usage of the site.

The creator of this public database claimed that the provided record of changes history will offer transparency to counteract malicious intent. Except that is clearly not the case, as anonymous individuals have made accounts through which they are adding and changing information on Mudis they do not own and they can too easily do this without reprisal as they hide behind faceless, nameless monikers. Changes were made to one epileptic Mudis health issue data by an anonymous individual named ‘Mudi Lover’*²¹, how is this transparent and how is this a benefit to the Mudi breed? And Mudi Lover is not a one off, there is also the very active data editor called nincsokaa*²², which translates to ‘there is no reason for (using my real name)’, which is a statement defying the need for transparency of who they actually are. This flies in the face of the stated goal of transparency this database originally promoted among its “many benefits”.

Next Stop Conflict

This public database has also failed to protect the owners that have reported health issues affecting their Mudi, from conflict with the breeder and others (like Mudi Lover) that do not want the health issue information made public on this database, or only want their version of the health issue given, and while the history does reflect the changes made, it becomes a made for TV drama to see who will finally make the last entry. A professional public database should not be like this! It should not be a contest of wills between the owner, breeder and other people as to which data should or should not be listed, or how exactly it should be stated. It should not end with the owner finally giving up. How long does it take for the main admins of the system or the creator of this database to stop this power play? And who will they choose to have the last word? How is this beneficial for the Mudi? It certainly has not been of any benefit for the owners.

Disputes with others should not be the allowed norm, or cost of being open and honest on a public database. This would not happen if only owners could enter information to their own dogs profiles after proof has been submitted, which is how a professional database operates.

Anyone can verify these conflicts do exist by opening the “View Change History” link provided under the name of the dog being investigated on this public database. Instructions on how to compare dated entries are given after you enter the history section, though it is not overly easy to select back and forth when there are many entries.

Another missing benefit of this database, connected to this topic, is the inability to search for specific health conditions, such as epilepsy, meaning, if you do not know the name of the Mudi with the health condition you are looking for, there is practically no chance to find it. It does not help that not all dogs from the same kennel are connected under the kennel name either, at least one case is affected by this lack of cross coverage, making it harder (to practically impossible) to find all the dogs created by one kennel, as it should be. As one of the main purposes behind this database was to help owners and breeders find information they need to help them in their pursuit of buying and breeding, the unavailable search ability and cross reference gaps do not provide benefit, but also conflict with that goal as well. Additionally, the high level of incorrect and incomplete data, as well as inclusion of non-existing dogs and duplications of dogs, also seriously affects the degree of accuracy anyone using this database should be acutely aware of.

This database has not even been online for a year and already it has failed several of its highest priority purposes for its creation and existence. I hope the creator and admins responsible for it will correct these failures, errors, and limitations promptly.

End of the Line

The ever increasing pile of failures, power plays and conflict of interest collisions, on both public and private channels, ultimately leads to derailment of breed benefit, while supporting the lack of responsibility in reporting cases, denial of existing and future cases and their clear hereditary connections, failure to administer proper breeding recommendations*²³ to avoid creating further epilepsy cases, plus the misuse of the available social media outlets that support these above-mentioned issues, and the use and misuse of improperly designed technical tools that cause more harm than good, all means the epilepsy express train will soon be stopping at everyone’s station. When that happens, it’s going to be too late to switch tracks, the fate of the breed will be not be reversible as there won’t be any track left. The puppy sales engine will hit the wall. The careless will go and find another breed to ruin, while those that tried to stop the train till the very end, will be left to mourn the wreckage.

Final Stop?

In Hungary, there is a well known saying:

A remény hal meg utoljára. (Hope dies last.)

As one of the most concerned passengers still traveling on this runaway train, in mid-December 2023, I wrote an information packed email to several renowned epilepsy specialist veterinarians, begging them for help with the Mudi breed. I was informed that they will meet very soon to discuss my request. I truly hope they will agree to help reduce the incidence of epilepsy, in whatever ways they can, because they are the Mudi breeds final hope.

*1 References and Links:

*2 Incidence and Inheritance of Epilepsy in Dogs

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552344/

https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?id=3861258&pid=11243&print=1#:~:text=Inherited%20forms%20of%20IE%20are,recessive%20or%20polygenic%20recessive%20inheritance.

*3 Brain Tumor

https://www.mspca.org/angell_services/its-not-always-a-tumor-when-to-suspect-a-brain-tumor-in-dogs-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/

https://hospital.cvm.ncsu.edu/services/small-animals/neurology/brain-tumors/

https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1136/vr.105647

*4 Brain Tumor Prognosis

https://www.northwestreferrals.co.uk/symptoms-of-brain-tumours-in-dogs/

https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/cancer/brain-tumors-dogs

*5 Breeds Prone to Brain Tumors