I’ve wanted a dog my whole life. I never did it because I didn’t want to be the person who went to an office 8 hours a day and left the dog bored and locked up at home.
But then I started a business and could make my own schedule. Jess came to me in 2016 and said it was time. I still didn’t feel ready, but you never do for these things.
We spent 6 months researching the breed that would fit what we wanted and decided on a Vizsla. Then it was another 18 months finding reputable breeders, stalking them at dog shows, and visiting puppy litters any chance we got. In the process, we started getting to know a close-knit Pacific NW Vizsla community. People who were rooting for us and offered to support us as first-time dog moms.
At first, it was great. We got help learning to dremel his nails properly. I dropped him off at a friend’s when a couple of sleepless nights left me crying with exhaustion. We were introduced to the world of the show ring and had fun loving on all the red dogs at shows.
Our breeders answered our near-daily calls and texts for the first few weeks and months.
Obi was a difficult puppy, with a lot of behavior issues that turned out to be health-related. One of the biggest surprises was his lack of cuddliness, which was just his personality. The Vizsla community spent 18 months telling us about ‘Velcro Vizslas.’ “The girls love you, but the boys are in love with you,” they said. So witnessing how independent he was compared to what we’d been told to expect and to the other Vizslas we were around was a surprise and an adjustment that we talked about openly.
Then we got an email from the breeder that shocked the hell out of us. People had been coming to her concerned that we didn’t love our dog, that we were comparing him unfavorably to the other dogs in his litter because he wasn’t cuddly, that she gave us the wrong dog, and he was too much for us.
Instead of talking to us directly, the whisper network went to work until eventually the breeder felt she needed to confront us. No one talked directly to us about any of this. The implied directive – we’ll support you—as long as you don’t make our dogs look bad in public by openly talking about real issues.
We got the message. After that, we went to shows and events and kept our struggles to ourselves. We built a network of professionals who didn’t assume that talking about our struggles equated to not loving our dog. They asked questions and helped us get to the root cause of our struggles. Switching to a raw diet resolved many of Obi’s stomach issues and had a huge positive effect on his behavior once he started feeling better.
His anxiety and reactivity was another challenge that took years of work to fully resolve. One of the hardest things for us as first-time dog owners was not having previous dog experience to help us judge what was just normal puppy or teenage behavior and what was out of character.
When Obi was around 9 months old saw our first Vet Behaviorist, who met with us for under an hour before declaring that he had general anxiety and suggesting he go on Prozac. We asked if this could just be the antics of a normal teenage high-energy dog, and she didn’t have an answer for us.
We decided to focus on training, and over the next 2 years, we worked incredibly hard to help Obi feel more relaxed about other dogs and in different environments. I just kept telling him, “When you’re 5, you’ll be perfect,” and I believed it. He made great progress.
Then, in April 2022, walking along the beach, Obi did one of his old attacks. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and there was no triggering event that I could point to, other than being in a wide open space. That’s when I walked back to our Airbnb and told Jess, “I think he needs meds.”
We went to a different Vet Behaviorist this time, someone we had been following for years whose first line of repair was usually to suggest training and reshaping dogs’ brains through games. This was our second time seeing him, and when we detailed everything we had been doing since our first consult, he agreed that Obi’s brain probably needed a little serotonin boost to get him feeling as good as possible. So he went on Prozac at just under 4 years old, and within a few weeks, the difference was noticeable. He became happier and more relaxed.
We settled into a couple of really good years of adventures, dog sports, and daily life. Obi was a dream to live with at home, a great adventure buddy, adored by all his Dog Adventures trainers on hikes, his dog walkers, pet sitters, healthcare team, my office mates, and his internet fans.
Then in the fall of 2024, his seizures started again. We didn’t realize it was ‘again’ because as a puppy, when he had episodes, his breeder suggested he probably got into marijuana, and given that puppies eat everything, that seemed plausible to us. But his seizures got more frequent, and happened at times of day when he had not been out of the house.
After one too many trips to urgent care, we finally saw a neurologist who diagnosed Obi with epilepsy. He looked at videos going back as far as 8 months of age and identified them as seizures.
Obi went on seizure medication and did well for a while, but ultimately, we lost him to the disease, one year and one day ago.
Around the time of his diagnosis, we started learning about other Vizslas related to Obi who had siezures. A 15-month-old nephew who had to be euthanized due to repeated grand mal seizures.
A friend who reached texted to ask what his seizures looked like because her 8-month-old girl— a granddaughter of Obi’s dad was acting funny. She had reached out to the breeder, who suggested she probably got into some marijuana…
I wonder if Obi would have had a longer life if he could have been properly diagnosed and treated sooner.
I wonder why some breeders refuse to acknowledge when there’s a history of seizures in their breeding lines.
No one expects breeders to control nature. There are always going to be issues. But hiding potential issues from prospective and current owners leads to the kind of heartbreak I wouldn’t wish on anyone. We wanted honesty. We wanted real support, not just praise for things that make your dog look good.
A few days after Obi died, I wrote a 20-page memorial about his life. The truth about his life. The good, the bad, the challenging. None of the challenges diminished the enormous love we have for him, or our pride in his many accomplishments and the life we were able to give him, and our gratitude for everything he taught us.
None of the breeders responsible for Obi’s bloodlines gave condolences on that post or privately. But they did find time a couple of days later to make a post about the dangers of giving Prozac to Vizslas and how it can cause seizures, and publish it on their profiles and in Vizsla groups. The article linked in the posts is an AKC post that links to other AKC posts but no scientific studies.
Obi didn’t go on Prozac until almost 4 years old, but his seizures started at 8 months old.
In his memorial post, I shared a study by the College of Veterinary Medicine that has the goal of developing genetic testing for epilepsy in Vizslas. They are seeking DNA samples from affected Vizslas and their relatives. None of the breeders of Obi’s lines reached out to learn more about how they could participate.
This January, we attended the big Rose City Classic dog show. We participated in scent work with Yoda and then went to watch the Vizsas in confirmation. Other than one of the owners of Obi’s mom, no breeders from Obi’s lines spoke to us or offered condolences.
That’s our experience with the Vizsla community. A group of people who talked behind our backs, supported us contingent on only talking about triumphs and keeping quiet about challenges, and stayed silent after the death of our dog except to distance themselves from any possible responsibility.
I share this because I’m tired of staying silent, and people out there considering a Vizsla should know the potential risks as well as the joys of these amazing dogs. Fortunately, we found a great match and a real community in Yoda’s breeder, and we are so grateful for their support and transparency and their unwavering inclusion and support of Obi when he was alive.
If you’re considering getting a Vizsla, there is a great Vizsla database that tracks the lineage of all AKC-registered Vizslas. I’ve updated Obi’s record with his health issues. Am/Int Ch Sokoldalu’s to the Moon and Back FDC SWN SHDN RATO CGCA CGCU TKN ATT
No breeding program is free of issues. The important thing is whether a breeder is willing to be open about their challenges and how they deal with them.