My dog is almost 12, he has been "ill" for several weeks now and the vet doesn't know why? his blood tests were fine but he is walking in circles and whining and howling alot. He has been walking like he's drunk and can't seem to keep his balance, and this morning he couldn't hardly stand on his own. any suggestions?
find a different vet ,yours is not helping.
Normally dogs have a history of staggering, and their head rolls from side to side. Definately sounds like maybe you should take him for a second opinion to a different vet.
my dog is doing the same thing right now and she is 13. i wondered if she had a stroke as well. when we took her to the vet she told us it was arthritis ans he gave us some medicine. which seemed to help. i also give my dog baby aspirin to help with the pain.
ok well yes this does sound like a stroke my girlfriends dog lassie had this and her head was to the side also and she was walking in circles and sometimes she fell,if it is a stroke shouldn't,t your vet be able to tell you this??it could also be a inner ear problem,if we as in humans get inner ear problem it makes us very dizzy and disorientated,so ask the vet about this,,and 1 last thing it could also be is his nervous system is out of whack just think of his nervous system like a circuit board to something electrical is 1 thing is connected wrong the whole thing goes outta whack,,take your dog back to the vet or a better vet mention these things it could be anything but all in all your dog NEEDS to be treated if i had to but money on it,i would say inner ear let me know how you go on and good luck xxxxx
Do you clean the dogs ears? if they get infected ears, and it isn't taken care of, it escalates. Or it could be a neurological problem. Sounds like your vet is an imbecile if they can't even figure out if it was a stroke or not, so go to a different vet. the dog needs specific tests to figure it out. if its an ear infection, there's medications for that along with antibiotics. There's medication to help with strokes too, but first you need a vet with enough sense to figure it out.
My dog Pork had a stroke but she was just more out of it then normal so she only had a mild one.
The best way to know for sure if a dog had a stroke is the tell tailed head tilted to the side. also when they have a stroke some times there is vomite there.
My vet told us to give Pork some Prednisone for about a week. it really helped her to come out of it. Now we just give her some Asprine.
I hope his helps you!
When they get older, a lot of stuff can go on that can be hard to find. Strokes can have different effects, so I would not rule that out. you may like to get a second opinion about your vet's diagnosis but.. like I said… when they get older it can be very tough.
Try asking at a dog forum where the people will actually want to help, unlike many of the ones who answer on Yahoo answers
dogforum.org
Good luck, I'm very sorry to hear that your dog is not feeling well 
I think you might be right. my older dog would need to lean to one side which caused her to go in very wide circles to get around. After a while she would come out of that (a full day sometimes) but, in the end she had I guess a big one and you could see her eyes just going back and fourth really fast and she would just fall over to the side everytime she got up.