help for my beloved Jack Russell's weight & fits

by Terri
(Wangi Wangi , NSW, Australia)

I have two Jack Russells, from the same mother 2 years apart. Michelle is now 7 and Scotty is now 5. Scotty is the one I am concerned about at the moment. He was diagnosed with high liver enzymes about a year or 2 ago he has seemed fine although we are getting very concerned with him as he has been putting on a lot of weight (he is almost 6kgs). He has 75 gms of my dog for tea and about a handful of science diet little bites for breakfast (we have changed to mature thinking that would be better but it appears not) and has a pigs trotter during the evening - we have stopped the pigs trotters as we were thinking that was putting the weight on. We believe he has foxing in him as he has a little head and a russell body making it difficult to get the correct leads/harness for him as he can get out of them. What should we do ?

We did have issues with Michelle a couple of years ago where she was having what appeared to be sort of fits, her eyes would glaze over and she lose the use of her legs, she would recognise us to come over to us in a difficult way to let us know she was in trouble and we would sooth her until she got out of it. She was prescribed some drug that humans have (Phenabarb I think) we didn't give it to her, due to the side effects it can have. My my husband used to give her some of his beer, (he read somewhere that that can cause fits in dogs), when he stopped she never had a fit she has been fine except almost two years later (2 days ago) on our walk she did a poo, rarely does and when I was picking it up saying what a good dog she was - she had another fit. It lasted about 5 minutes and when she was heading off you could see her legs were still not in sink for at least another 30 seconds. Could it be that she felt bad and was worried she did the wrong thing. I don't want to have to put her on a drug like that.

Should we change their diet, What is your opinion ?