involuntary head shaking?

If it persists I'd have the vet palpate it - it could be his neck hurts, it could be ear, it could be a lot of things.  Hard to tell from here.

It's possible that this is some sort of seizure activity or maybe some other type of neurolgical problem or it could be a quirk of his like you said.  I'd take him in and tell the Vet what you noticed.  Hopefully it is just a quirky habit but if it's gotten more frequent and it's worrying you, have him checked for your peace of mind.

I just thought I would update, even though it's not much of an update!

These shaking episodes seem to be occuring a bit more frequently.  They are sometimes hard to nortice, so it's hard to tell.  I asked the vet last week when Sammy was in for his teeth, and he said there was nothing he could think of that would present in this way without other symptoms.  We have a check-up for his teeth in another week so I will bring it up again.

It only seems to happen when he lays in a specific way, and it's definitely involuntary since I had my hand on his head and it wouldn't stop, not until he moved his position and as soon as he lifted his head it stopped.  Unfortunately, this is his favorite way to lay.  I'm thinking something to the effect of pinched nerve?  It doesn't seem to bother him in the least, not painful, not scary, it's weird.

I'm not sure where to go from here.  I'll keep asking the vet, but even for his paw sore/ulceration recurrance, all he does it keep giving us antibiotics.  I'm not too happy with that.  We're moving in 6 weeks so I'll be looking for a new vet then anyway, and I have some recommendations of vets out that way already.  The closest TCVM vet is almost 1.5 hrs or more, and they are associated with a regular vet practice... and they are the only ones for a pretty long ways.  It was something like a few hundred dollars just to walk in the door... I remember discussing it with Callie when we had other troubles with the pup, and it didn't sound like an ideal place, although it might help.

I can't really spend boat loads of money until after the closing in May, but hopefully after that we can try to sort this out since weird things like this, and his paw issues, concern me.  Sigh.

Hard to say -- It would be helpful if you could get a video of it or something (cell phone?) - anything to try to document it I'd think. 

Good idea -- I'll try.  If I move to get the camera/phone etc he usually picks his head up to watch me.  So DH and I will have to be super stealthy!  It would probably help, I have a hard time describing it, and that's with the fact that I have a bit more medical knowledge than the normal person.  And anything to make the vet understand that it's REAL even if he doesn't have other symptoms of things.

Thanks!

Even if this doesn't turn out to be anything serious, or if we never figure out what it might be or even if it is anything at all, I wanted to update just in case there's lurkers out there-- I tried doing a google search but I wasn't coming up with anything that was all that close, there was a few posts around the internet but no one ever follows up with them.  Frustrating.

I know this topic is old, but I just came across it. Hopefully it's okay for me to bring it back up. NicoleS- Do you have any idea if Sammy has much boxer in him? One of my dogs, Maya, has had a couple of episodes that sound similar to what you're describing. Out of nowhere she started rocking her head back and forth in sort of an uncontrollable wobble. Each episode was maybe a minute or less, and she was perfectly lucid and calm the whole time. No loss of balance. No other symptoms. It didn't look like a seizure, but I was concerned that it might be a sign of a serious neurological issue so I googled every different way I could think to describe it. I came across quite a bit of information on head tremors occurring in boxers and bulldogs. I've always figured Maya was a boxer mix anyway, so that definitely fit. If you haven't run across it yet, you may want to search for "boxer head tremor" and see if that fits Sammy. There are lots of accounts on breed forums and websites. There are even videos on YouTube to compare to, although Maya's episodes were much milder than all the videos I found. Everything I've read pretty much says that no one has figured out a cause, but it doesn't seem to be indicative of anything serious. A lot of people report a period of episodes but then nothing ever again, kind of like their dog just grew out of it. Some people also said their dog tended to have a few episodes close together, but the group of episodes only came along once a year or so. Actually, since I'm dragging this topic up anyway, I have a question. You mentioned Sammy having problems with recurring paw sores. Is there a previous topic on that? I tried to search but I can't seem to find anything. Maya has an odd chronic paw issue that looks like her pads just start sloughing off and I haven't found a cause or effective treatment yet. Is that anything like Sammy's feet? Have you found anything that prevents it or helps? -Rebecca W.

Our best guess is that Sammy is boxer/beagle, so the boxer thing fits!

Actually, we think we've figured it out -- we think it was the leash we used.  let me explain.

We had gotten a really nice, sturdy, cutom leash from an idogger who makes them a while back.  However, because it's so heavy-duty, and has a traffic handle, and some really hefty clamps, it kind of weighs a lot. Since the vet was out of ideas, we tried switching to the flexi again since it's so light weight.  He stopped having these weird episodes.  One DH uses it for a potty break since he couldn't find the flexi and that night he had a head shaky thing again. We've not used it since and he's been fine.  Go figure.

As for the paws -- yes, there is at least one if not two threads with pictures of his paws.  He would get these big fliud filled bumps on his paws, and they would open and ulcerate and hang around for many weeks, and then heal over.  First time, we thought it might be a bite or something, it was on three paws.  Thread should have been sometime around Halloween, actually.  Vet put him on antibiotics for something like 6 weeks and they finally cleared up.  A couple months later, one paw came back, but it wasn't nearly as severe and we had maybe 3-4 weeks of antibiotics.  I have no idea if the antibiotics helped, or if it would have cleared up anyway, honestly. 

Sorry I can't find the thread for you and my answers are brief -- we're in the middle of moving and I only have intermittent internet access, so forgive me if I'm not prompt to replies at the moment. 

Sammy looks likes my dog Roxy's twin!  She just started with the head tremors this week.  She has had 3 since Saturday.  Nothing seems to be triggering it, it freaks me out when it happens.  She is fully alert and they only last a minute or two.  Roxy is 3+1/2,  she is boxer/fox hound mix.  Still doing some research. 

It is so weird!  Sammy's would go until he moved his head or I touched him and he moved.  And the stop.  So that was even weirder!

But, since we gave up the really nice, but really heavy leash, he hasn't had one!!  It was strange.  I don't see how the leash did it, but maybe it was pressing on something?  It was a nice leash, too, and kinda of expensive since it had a nice traffic loop and such.  It was from one of our own idoggers, actually.  So I was sad to stop using it, but after putting it away for a week or so, DH used it once when he couldn't find the other one and Sammy had a weird head thing that day. since then it hasn't come out and no more head thingys.

I wish you luck in figuring out what it is for Roxy -- maybe it's something simple like for us??