Seizure logging for pets: what to record and how to share it
This guide is general information and not a substitute for your veterinarian. If your pet is seizing right now and it has lasted more than five minutes, call your vet or the nearest emergency clinic without waiting.
Your dog or cat has had a seizure, maybe the first one, maybe the third, and you're trying to get a handle on something that feels impossible to predict. The single most useful thing you can do is keep a record. After each seizure you note a handful of things, and over weeks those notes turn a scary blur into a pattern your vet can actually treat from.
This page is the overview: what to write down, when a seizure is an emergency, and how the record shapes the treatment. Each part has a fuller guide linked below. It works the same for dogs and cats.
What a seizure actually is
A seizure is a burst of disordered electrical activity in the brain. Normally brain cells fire in organised patterns. In a seizure a group of them fires all at once, and the body does whatever those cells control, which is why a seizure can look like collapse and paddling in one dog and like brief staring and twitching in another.
Most seizures follow three phases, and knowing them helps you describe what you saw. Some pets show a warning phase beforehand, restless, clingy, hiding, or just off in a way you can't name. Then comes the seizure itself, usually under two minutes. Then the recovery, which vets call the postictal phase, when your pet may be disoriented, wobbly, temporarily blind, ravenously hungry, or exhausted. That recovery can last minutes or hours, and it frightens owners as much as the seizure does. It's normal, and it's worth noting how long it lasts.
Two things worth hearing early, because almost everyone worries about them. Your pet is not conscious of pain during a generalised seizure. And they cannot swallow their tongue, so there is never a reason to put your hands or anything else near the mouth. The mouth is the one place you can genuinely get hurt. Our guide on seizure first aid covers what to do instead.
Why it happens, and what your vet will check
Seizures have many possible causes, and finding which one applies is the first job after the first episode. Broadly your vet is separating three groups: a problem inside the brain, a problem elsewhere in the body affecting the brain, and idiopathic epilepsy.
That last term comes up a lot and sounds worse than it is. Idiopathic simply means no underlying cause was found. It's the most common diagnosis in dogs who start having seizures between roughly six months and six years old, and it's a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning it's what's left after the other causes have been ruled out. Plenty of dogs with idiopathic epilepsy live full, ordinary lives on medication.
Expect blood and urine tests first, since things like liver problems and low blood sugar can cause seizures and are treatable in their own right. Depending on your pet's age, the pattern, and what the neurological exam shows, your vet may raise advanced imaging such as an MRI, or referral to a neurologist. Age matters here: a first seizure in a young puppy or an older senior points in different directions than one in a healthy adult dog.
What treatment usually looks like
Not every pet who has a seizure needs daily medication. Vets generally weigh how often the seizures come, how severe they are, whether clusters are happening, and what caused them. A single seizure with a long gap after it is often watched rather than treated straight away, which is one of the reasons your record matters so much: it's the evidence that decision gets made from.
When medication does start, it's usually daily, long term, and given at consistent times. It's worth knowing two things going in. Most anti-seizure medications reduce seizure frequency rather than stopping seizures completely, so the goal is fewer and milder, not zero. And they are not medications to stop suddenly, because abrupt withdrawal can trigger severe seizures. Any change to the plan is your vet's call, not something to adjust at home.
Side effects are common early and often settle. Wobbliness, sleepiness, increased thirst and appetite come up frequently with phenobarbital, which our guide covers in detail. Regular blood tests are part of the deal with some medications, both to check the level in the blood and to keep an eye on the liver. Write down what you notice in the first few weeks, because that's the information your vet needs to tell settling-in from a genuine problem.
What to write down after a seizure
Your vet almost never sees the seizures themselves, so your notes are what they work from. A few words per entry is plenty:
- The date and time, so patterns across the day can show up.
- How long it lasted, from the start until the body settled.
- What it looked like: conscious or absent, whole body or one part, drooling, paddling legs, loss of bladder or bowel control.
- What was happening just before, like excitement, food, or sleep.
- The recovery, how long your pet was confused, wobbly, or worn out afterward.
- Any medication you gave, and whether a regular dose was missed.
An entry might read: 14:10, sudden collapse, whole body, about 90 seconds. Slow recovery over ten minutes, disoriented for half an hour. No medication given. That's enough. The seizure diary guide walks through each detail and has a free printable template, and seizure first aid covers what to do in the moment.
When to call your vet or an emergency clinic
Most seizures are over quickly and are not an emergency. But call your vet or the nearest emergency clinic right away if:
- A single seizure lasts longer than five minutes.
- Several seizures come close together without a full recovery in between. This is called cluster seizures.
- Your pet doesn't come round properly between two seizures.
- It's the very first seizure you've seen, or your pet has hurt themselves.
A seizure that won't stop is a true emergency where minutes count. When in doubt, make the call. That's exactly the kind of question your vet would rather answer.
What the pattern tells your vet
One seizure is an event. A record of seizures is information. From the notes across the weeks in between, your vet reads the things that shape treatment: how often they happen and whether they're getting more frequent, what they look like, whether a new dose or medication has changed anything, and whether any trigger keeps showing up.
Memory can't do this. After the third seizure the first two blur together, and "maybe twice last month" doesn't help anyone. Written down, a feeling becomes a number the two of you can work with. With Charly, the pattern only showed up once we had a few months of it on paper.
Guides in this series
- Dog seizure diary: what to write down
- Seizure first aid for dogs and cats
- Cluster seizures: what they mean and what to do
- Phenobarbital side effects in dogs
Related guides
Common questions
Is a single seizure an emergency?
Most single seizures stop on their own in a minute or two and aren't an emergency, frightening as they look. Call your vet or an emergency clinic if one lasts longer than five minutes, if several come close together, if your pet doesn't come round in between, or if it's the very first seizure you've seen.
Can I prevent my pet's seizures?
There's no reliable way to prevent seizures at home, and no diet or supplement that stops them. What helps is giving any medication on a consistent schedule, keeping a record so your vet can adjust treatment, and noting anything that seems to come before an episode. The goal is fewer seizures, managed with your vet, not a cure.
What seizure triggers should I watch for?
Not every seizure has a trigger, but common ones to note are stress or excitement, a missed or late dose, a change in sleep, and sometimes the same time of day. You spot them by writing down what happened just before each seizure, so a pattern can show up over weeks that no single episode would reveal.
Where this information comes from
This guide is written from living with an epileptic dog and checked against published veterinary sources. It's general information, not advice for your individual pet. If you want to read further:
- Epilepsy and Seizure Disorders, Veterinary Medical Center, The Ohio State University. An owner-facing overview of idiopathic epilepsy, what seizures look like, the recovery phase, and how diagnosis and monitoring work.
- International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force consensus reports, BMC Veterinary Research, 2015. The open-access consensus statements on how epilepsy in dogs and cats is defined, classified, diagnosed, and treated. Written for vets, and the reference point behind most current guidance.
Felova is being built for exactly this, a calm place to log seizures and medication so the picture is there when your vet needs it. It's not out yet. Until then, our printable logs do the same job on paper.
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