Seizure safeguards.
Even if you are lucky enough to have your dog's seizures fairly well under control, it is always safest to prepare as if one could strike at any time.
     If your dog can still jump up on furniture, it's best to lay down a pile of cushions, pillows, blankets or towels in case your dog should seizure and fall off. Move away the coffee table. JoJo once fell off the couch during a seizure in the middle of the night. After frantic searching, we finally found that he had rolled beneath the coffee table and had become trapped while still seizing.
     Some people have "safe rooms" in their house where their dogs can stay when they cannot be monitored. For a small dog, you might be able to set up a padded pen to keep him from harm. Remove furniture that your dog might fall off or become trapped under. Cover sharp edges and remove objects that could be accidentally consumed by a dog who has lost the ability to know what is edible. Install a potty station and low beds or cushions that will help your dog stay comfortable.
     If your dog has a seizure while inside a crate, it's best not to try to remove him, if possible, until the seizure stops. It might be helpful to insert cushioned bumper pads around the inside of the crate if your dog stays there often.

Night watch.
Nights are a bad time for dogs who have brain tumors. It is the time when seizures are most likely to strike and it is the often the time when pain and symptoms feel the worst. For months, JoJo woke up several times each night. Sometimes he was hungry. Other times he needed to use the bathroom and couldn't find his way. Other times he had an accident that needed to be cleaned up.
     The only thing I could compare this to is caring for a newborn. I wish I had more advice for this, but the only thing I can recommend is plenty of love and patience. We found it helped to go to bed early to allow more sleeping time in case of wee hour interruptions.
     For more information or help for night wakefulness, please see our section on Illness-Related Anxiety.

In case of emergency.
Be sure to have the name of your veterinarian, and your emergency clinic on hand. If you travel, you might want to contact veterinarians in the location you will be visiting to find out who you can contact in an emergency and how to get there. You might also want to take along a copy of your dog's medical records.

Potty preparations.
Possibly one of the more pressing aspects of caring for a critically ill dog, is that they may lose part or all of their housebreaking.
     Our JoJo was always fastidious about his toilet manners, but as his tumor grew, he had an increasingly difficult time maintaining his own standard of cleanliness. Puddles on the bathroom rug were our first indication that he was having trouble holding his bladder.
     Fortunately, friends on the Chihuahua List told me about WeeWee Pads (one of several brand names). These handy inventions are similar to disposable diapers that lie like mats on the floor. They have an absorbent cloth upper layer and are lined with plastic to help prevent leakage. You can find these pads in most pet supply stores.
     To train JoJo to use them, we would just "spike" the pads with urine from one of his accidents. Some people say that dogs who are trained to go outside cannot be papertrained, but JoJo took to this right away.
     As his illness progressed, however, he became less capable of getting to the potty station on time, or would miss his target. The steroids and other drugs he took in his last months also caused him to consume huge quantities of water. He urinated frequently and he sometimes flooded the pads.
     To cope with this we added other potty stations in convenient locations throughout the house. We placed large, clear Plexiglas sheets underneath to protect the floor. Because JoJo had trouble walking, we found the plexi-glass worked better than a lipped tray.

For more help:
Wee Wee Pads – Plastic-backed "diaper" pads scented with pheromones that attract your dog.

Puppy Johns – a plastic floor protector designed to hold pads plus instructions for retraining a dog housebroken to the outdoors.

Cleaning up.
When your dog is sick, you may wonder if there is more outside your dog than inside! Arm yourself with plenty of good mops, carpet cleaner and buckets. Our lifesaver was a product called Simple Solution. Another popular brand name is Nature's Miracle. They are a cleaning formulas that chemically break down the cause of odors in the "presents" your sick dog leaves you. They can be used to clean most surfaces. Read the label if you're not sure. You can find these products in most pet supply stores.