Your pets are a major part of your life, and it's important to know if anything is wrong with them, so you should have a little basic knowledge about one of the more common conditions that can occur in dogs - canine epilepsy. Basically that is when you dog keeps having seizures, when he or she is shaking uncontrollably.

To understand epilepsy, you have to know what a seizure is in the first place. Essentially it is an random firing of neurons in the brain, and you can tell it's happening if your animals starts thrashing around, or if it shakes and appears to become unaware of what it going on around it; it is often a very noticeable occurrence, but not necessarily.

Many things can cause these seizures, but a big factor is how much stress a dog is under. It can be from just general excitement, but it can also come from feelings of danger, from meeting strangers or strange animals, or environmental factors like hot and cold. Nightmares can even cause this stress, and dogs can have them just like humans can!

Another thing that causes seizures is if a dog is around a lot of toxins, or eats low-quality food which can contain impurities that are harmful or even poisonous to the dog over time. Dogs have a specific natural diet, and that diet has been changed entirely during the domestication process, but some of the foods that humans have fed them are definitely not healthy.

Inside this food, there can be dyes, food coloring to make it appear fresh or healthy to us, preservatives to make their shelf-life longer, antibiotics for this or that reason, and any kind of chemical flavoring. These additives can collect in a dog's body over time, and eventually lead to the consequence of seizures, and eventually to sets of epileptic fits.

Canine epilepsy can also be caused by things like repeated concussions, late-stage heartworms, if you have any toxic plants around that are dangerous to the dog, and any sort of chemicals or fertilizers that can be hanging around your home. Don't rule out genetics, as well, which can play a part in your dog's susceptibility to the condition.

If your dog has epilepsy, there are other signs of poor health to watch for as well. Things like massive shedding or loss of hair, back injuries and inflammation, joint pain, arthritis, low energy, bad skin, and uncontrollably scratching all point to different health problems.

If you think your dog may have canine epilepsy, check through all of the symptoms, and go to a doctor to check if there is anything that you can do to help it, from a change in diet to change in environment.