10/29/2025
FOR ANYONE WHO may have missed this feature, today our breed expert Carol Price looks at an important condition to know about in older collies:
VESTIBULAR SYNDROME IN THE OLDER DOG
Previously on this page I have written about Border Collie Collapse, a nervous system disorder thought to be caused by a defective gene, and which can first present itself quite early on in a dog’s life. It can be frightening for any owner to witness for the first time, but can also be far better controlled with improved management of the dog's exercise and heat levels.
Today, however, I wanted to focus on a condition more commonly seen in older collies; Vestibular Syndrome (VS). It, too, can be distressing to witness in your dog for the first time. And how well or not your dog can recover from this condition will depend on how severe, or frequent, their VS episodes happen to be.
WHAT DOES 'VS' LOOK LIKE?
The symptoms of VS can often have a rapid onset, and may vary from just a very temporary and milder form of mental ‘absence’ to something far more severe (as outlined later). But a typical episode involves the dog suddenly losing their balance, then staggering or circling around, like they are struggling to keep upright, or they may keep collapsing. Dogs may also vomit, or look nauseous, and their eyes may flicker rapidly from side to side (a phenomenon known as nystagmus). Additionally they may have a more noticeable head tilt on one side.
IS IT A ‘STROKE’?
Owners may immediately think their dog is having a 'stroke', when in fact the symptoms are stemming from some malfunction in the dog's vestibular system; a highly complex neurological system governing balance, and the correct positioning of any animal's head, body and eyes, in relation to their surrounding space and immediate horizon.
The vestibular system involves sensors in the inner ear acting much like spirit levels, continually sending messages to the balance control centre in the brain. The brain then instantly makes any corrections required in muscle movement, or body and eye position, to keep an animal upright and moving straight and aligned with their environment. Thus when anything goes wrong in this sensitive relay and response system, an animal's balance and co-ordination can suddenly go haywire.
HOW SERIOUS IS IT?
How serious a VS episode proves to be in your dog depends not just on the severity and perseverance of symptoms, but also whether the problem is more external - e.g. to do with an ear inflammation or infection - or something more serious happening internally, like a brain or nerve tumour. Head trauma of some kind is also thought to cause VS, as well as vitamin deficiencies (notably thiamine) or some medications that a dog is more sensitive to.
Vets can certainly help to establish what, more specifically, might be causing VS symptoms in your dog, in order to better treat them, but a very high number of these episodes in older dogs, especially, will be classed as idiopathic; i.e. as having no identifiable cause. And should the cause of them be less serious, the good news also is that many dogs get over them pretty well. Some may recover in days, or weeks, others may take a bit longer. During this time they will need more drastically reduced exercise and lots of TLC until they are better.
WILL VS KEEP RECURRING IN YOUR DOG?
Sometimes an older collie may have one or two VS episodes within a period of a few months, then never have one again. Others may have more, or another episode that is far more severe. It remains a highly unpredictable condition, in terms of both severity and incidence of occurrence, However, it is also worth reassuring owners to not always 'fear the worst' when a VS episode occurs in their older dog, given how many dogs we know who have made excellent recoveries from them over time.
WHEN VS IS MORE SERIOUS
In the main, VS tends to get divided into two forms of varying severity – the first is the milder, more peripheral kind, already mentioned, which dogs tend to recover from pretty quickly, but there is also another form – Central Vestibular Syndrome – where the damage done to the dog’s whole nervous system seems to be greater, and from which they may never really recover, or even be able to walk again.
Once again, the onset of this more serious form can appear quite sudden. Having discussed this more serious form of the condition with a number of different vets, it is still hard to establish, more exactly, what it is about the ageing dog that causes it to occur, barring other more obvious things like brain or nerve tumours. There may also be some link to the more natural degeneration of the spine in older dogs, resulting in wider nerve damage or spinal haemorrhages.
But having lost a number of dogs to this in older age, it really can be quite devastating to witness, as they can also be racked with agonising nerve spasms throughout the body, and your only thought is to try to relieve them of such suffering as soon as you can. At the back of your mind, always, though is whether there was something more you could have done to prevent this happening to your beloved dog, if you knew more about what was really going wrong inside them. And we don’t have the answer yet, but maybe one day we will.
In the meantime, any symptoms of neurological disturbance in the older dog should always be more individually explored by a vet. You cannot just ‘assume’ it is VS, which will get better by itself, when it might be something else requiring more urgent treatment or intervention. So it is still always best to get the right diagnosis from your vet.
All text © Carol Price 2025/Collieology
