If you’re dealing with idiopathic head tremors (or sometimes referred to as head bobbing), you have my sympathy. It’s stressful to not know why something is wrong with your pup, and it’s even more stressful to watch them go through it knowing that there’s nothing you can do.

If you’re new to head tremors, I’ve written about it HERE, and a veterinary office contributed an article here. Both posts contain a different video of Cooper tremoring so you can compare it to what you’re experiencing. {Update 2016: Here’s my most recent post with head tremor FAQs to check out after you’ve read through the other material to hopefully get any lingering questions answered.}

On both of those posts, I tried to keep up with the comments but totally lost track! The general thread, though, is that everyone is reporting something different: Some people suspect grains were causing tremors, then others reported an increase in head bobbing with a grain-free diet. A handful of people had luck adding calcium supplements, and others reported vaccines worsened tremoring episodes. With Cooper, I suspect it’s related to his already compromised immune system, but there’s no proof behind that… it’s just a theory.

So. Frustrating.

From our end, I thought we had gone months without a single tremor, and I was thrilled… until Cooper started climbing into bed with me in the middle of the night. Twice recently I was woken up by him tremoring in the early morning hours. That got me thinking that maybe he hadn’t been tremor-free but that we just weren’t awake when they were happening. Again. So. Frustrating.

So, in an effort to help track the tremors, I put together an Excel spreadsheet, my “Tremor Tracker.”

It’s nothing fancy – I’m not so good with Excel – but if you’d like to download the file, click here to download. You’re welcome to customize it however you need. I just hope it helps!

While I’m not good at Excel, John is… and he’s thinking of putting together a graphing situation so when you fill in the data (we’ll have to tweak the fields) it charts any trends. If he gets it made, I’ll be sure to share it here!

In the meantime, I’d love to know how your dogs have been doing. Any updates? Improvements? Have you spotted any trends that might help the community? Please share your experiences in the comments!

New here? Welcome! Join us on Facebook or subscribe to continue the discussion!