A little bit about Penny

A little bit about Penny
Penny is a purebred Golden Retriever. I have had her since she was 7 weeks old. She was born on May 16th 2006. For the first two years of her life she was perfectly normal, healthy and full of energy.

Before the problems began and when allergies started
In those first two years the only problem that Penny had was with ear infections, which seemed to be a problem that kept coming back. Other that that the main problems did not start till after she was 2 years old, when she suddenly developed allergies. It mainly affected, but was not limited to, her face and paws.

Seizure Problems
While we were struggling to gain control of her allergy problems she started to have seizures just after she had been very active. Her seizures were not like the common seizures in which they stiffen up or shake. She would be acting completely normal and all of a sudden start to run around as if she was afraid of in pain and cry continuously till she would finally stop and go back to normal. I did not consider that these episodes could be seizures until one day when she was extremely active and she suddenly collapsed and stiffened up (very, very scary). At this time she had just come off of steroids and I believe that it made the seizure problems worse.

After the seizures seemed to go away we struggled with her allergies for a while longer and then they got better. For a very short period of time she seemed to be improving greatly and almost seemed like the worst was behind us.

Current Problems- Eyes and other strange things
Currently her allergies do not seem to be as big of a problem, since her paws are just slightly red and her face is not red and bleeding. But now she has another problem, this time it is with her eyes. Her tear count is very low and so her eyes get all gooey, and at times have a lot of discharge. She has also developed some strange eating habits and from time to time will burp up some clear liquid. I am hoping that the strange eating habits and burping up liquid are not signs of more larger problems to come, but it worries me because her other larger problems have also started of small and gotten a lot worse. Hopefully it will be nothing serious. You can read more about her current condition in the Update post.

Detailed Information about Past Problems, Coming Soon
I am trying to get together a post with more detailed information about all her past problems but it may take a little while, I have a lot of information all over the place including a lot that is just in my head that I really must get written down before I forget more than I probably already have.