HOMESTEAD
Loss of dog endangers epileptic
A Homestead mother is offering a reward for the return of her severely epileptic son's seizure-detecting dog.
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com
It's been three months since his little black dog, Sparky, disappeared from the front yard in Homestead, and Carl Brooks still cries for his lost pet.
His life is not only sadder now, but also more dangerous. Sparky is a seizure-detecting dog, and Carl, 17, is epileptic.
Carl seizes nearly every day, says his mother, Dr. Nita Lewis, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Miami, and Sparky ``knows before we do.''
He barks and runs to get someone.
''It's mostly at night,'' she says, ''so it's really valuable,'' enabling Lewis to give medication that will abort the seizure.
On Dec. 15, Lewis came home to find the gate open and Sparky gone. Within a week, she says, Carl had a seizure that lasted at least an hour and landed him in the hospital.
Now Lewis, 56, drives around with a huge banner on her white Dodge Dakota truck. There's a picture of Sparky, and in English and Spanish, a plea: ``Lost small black seizure dog belongs to heartbroken epileptic boy.''
Sparky is a 10-pound poodle/terrier mix, woolly like the former, with the latter's facial features.
''He's cute as he can be but he's 8 years old, not a puppy,'' says Lewis, who has postings on www.fidofinder.com, an online pet lost-and-found, and on craigslist, an online network of local community forums. ``It never occurred to me that someone would want to take him.''
She thinks it's related to something unusual that happened Dec. 15.
``We're completely surrounded by tree farms. That afternoon, there was an accident on Moody Drive and police routed all the traffic down our little street. . . . I think Sparky was someone's Christmas gift.''
CHALLENGED CHILD
Carl meets a visitor at the front door with one of his favorite toys: Pooh's Piano Book. Its keyboard lights up the notes for songs like Hot Cross Buns, and This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes.
It's recommended for children 18 months and older.
That's the age at which Carl last had what his mother calls a normal intellect, despite a seizure accompanied by a fever at 8 months that seemed to cause no permanent damage.
Then doctors prescribed anti-seizure drugs and, says Lewis, Carl got worse. By now, she says, ``he only has the IQ of a 4-year-old.''
Epileptics with less severe conditions usually avoid such complications and lead normal lives.
Carl was 9 when Sparky, his grandmother's dog, came to live with him.
Carl can speak simple sentences, such as ''Rings the bells!'' while offering a Christmas Furby doll. He seldom leaves the house, where a teacher visits five days a week.
Lewis is divorced -- ''You have a child like this, it puts a terrible strain on your marriage'' -- and shares the house with the widower of a relative, who cares for Carl when she's not home.
Neither gets much sleep, she says, because ``you have to watch [Carl] all the time.''
Sparky could sometimes spare Carl medication by alerting Lewis early enough to activate Carl's vagus nerve stimulator. The device, in his chest, delivers an electrical signal to the nerve, in his neck, minimizing the seizure.
CANINE CREDIBILITY
Peter Van Haverbeke, a spokesman for The Epilepsy Foundation, says seizure-detecting dogs are well accepted by health professionals.
''There are dogs who seem to have a natural ability to forewarn,'' he says. ``They can't be trained to do it, although if a dog does shows a natural inclination, that can be reinforced.''
No one knows how dogs develop the ability to sense an impending seizure, adds Michelle Cobey, a spokesperson for The Delta Society, a nonprofit agency that helps disabled people find service animals, though one theory is that they can smell body-chemistry changes.
``What many places do is train the dog to recognize that there is a seizure and train for the reaction to it: call 911 [on specially equipped phones] or get someone.''
Jennifer Arnold, executive director of Canine Assistants, a Georgia-based service-dog training school, says that while dogs can't be trained to detect seizures, trainers can try to develop the ability based on dogs' wolflike tendencies.
``If they see the person as the pack leader, the pack is in grave risk if something happens to the leader. They feel anxious and display it in a way you can pick up. It's also been very effective to place the dog as Mom's lieutenant commander. They feel great responsibility for the well-being of the young in the pack.''