Head Shaking problem

Question
My 9 month old rednose pitbull female, has a weird shaking problem.  We first noticed it when she was around 5 months of age.  She has these short head shaking episodes. They dont happen often though somedays more often than others. Its almost like she is constantly saying, "no no no".  When we first seen her do it, we thought she was having a seizure, but unlike a seizure, she is completly conscience.  During the episodes she is still able to yawn, bite her toys, play tug a war, blink normally, look at me, perk her ears, focus on somthing, and so on.  I have no idea what could be causeing these episodes of shaking. It seems she has no control over when they happen either. Any sugguestions on what the problem might be?

Answer
This sounds like a pretty good case of what we call petite mal seizures. With petite (small in French) seizures the dog seems to be twitching, or shaking or just staring into space. There are other names for them such as focal seizures because they tend to be 'focused' in one area of the body as opposed to grand mal seizures which are the kind where the dog is on the floor, thrashing about, vocalizing, urinating and defecating uncontrollably.

These small seizures are more common then you know. Some dogs get this type of neurological disorder after having a mild case of distemper. There are videos all over Youtube about dogs with petite mal seizures, so you might want to go take a look at them.

She may just have a nerve induction tic, where the nerves fire off on their own and the dog basically ignores it.

Because of her age, breed etc., she really needs to see vet and have a complete workup done. That way you will know what they are for sure and if anything can be done about them.