# geriatric dog behavior



## Rvent (Apr 15, 2012)

Lately Babs is acting a little weird, she does a lot of whining, sometime when she is sleeping and you touch her she kinda doggie screams, gets up in the middle of the night a few times paces for a minute and then lays back down, just over all doesn't seem to be herself, she sometimes has a lot of energy does the zoomies around the house....... I do not know her exact age the vet said she approx 3 when I got her 9 years ago.... I know her knee is bothering her on occasion but I don't know what else to do for her and what is normal for a dog her age. She has been raw fed since Feb, she gets an occasional supplement of bio algae and bovine colostrum she is also on 40mg of Prozac a day and has been for 8 years. It kills me she is just getting old and is not herself.


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## Donna Little (May 31, 2011)

I hope this isn't it but it sounds like she's beginning to have dementia. Google "canine dementia" and compare her symptoms to what you read because it seems that the symptoms are pretty similar in most all dogs that have it.
I went through this for about a year and a half with my Chihuahua and it was awful. He started whining at night mostly and pacing sporadically at first a couple times a night. He used to sleep in the bed with me but when he started getting up so frequently I was afraid he'd fall off the bed so had to make him sleep in a doggie bed. He was around 16-17 yrs old and nearly blind so at first I thought it was just making him nervous when the lights were off and he couldn't see at all. But the last 6 months or so of his life he was pacing for hours at a time at night and whining and nothing I did comforted him. He would be literally exhausted by morning and would still only be able to sleep for short periods of time. It was as if his mind was racing and it was heartbreaking to watch. I tried everything I could to make him better but ultimately he continued to decline. He got to where he didn't know who I was and would totally panic if I picked him up. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through because this little dog meant the world to me. He started losing weight even though he was eating great and got weaker and weaker. When I finally knew I had to let him go he weighed just over 2-1/2 lbs, down from his usual weight of 4 lbs. 
Watching our old guys age is so hard and I'm sorry you're going through this. There is a drug called Anipryl (generic is Selegiline) sp? and it helped my little guy tremendously for a few months. I'm told people have great success with it though if they get their dog on it early on. I didn't even hear about it until Tommy was well into his dementia. If you buy it in the US you can only get the name brand and it's very expensive. You can however with a prescription from your vet, get it from a Canadian pharmacy in generic form and it's a fraction of the cost. 
Why is your dog on Prozac? Is that for anxiety? If you do decide to consider the Anipryl make sure Babs can take it along with Prozac so there's not a bad drug interaction. I wish you all the best with her.


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## Rvent (Apr 15, 2012)

Thanks, I was thinking along the same lines... she had an episode a while back, vet thought it could be her thyroid, but then she seemed fine up until a week or so ago. She is on Prozac because she use to bite my husband, they said it was from anxiety and some protective/fear aggression... it only seem to happen when he got angry she would go after him the Prozac didn't stop it completely but it made it so it might only happen once in a blue moon.... she had a traumatic past and I couldn't bring myself to put her down so she is on the prozac.


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## Nana52 (Apr 28, 2012)

Donna Little said:


> I hope this isn't it but it sounds like she's beginning to have dementia. Google "canine dementia" and compare her symptoms to what you read because it seems that the symptoms are pretty similar in most all dogs that have it.
> I went through this for about a year and a half with my Chihuahua and it was awful. He started whining at night mostly and pacing sporadically at first a couple times a night. He used to sleep in the bed with me but when he started getting up so frequently I was afraid he'd fall off the bed so had to make him sleep in a doggie bed. He was around 16-17 yrs old and nearly blind so at first I thought it was just making him nervous when the lights were off and he couldn't see at all. But the last 6 months or so of his life he was pacing for hours at a time at night and whining and nothing I did comforted him. He would be literally exhausted by morning and would still only be able to sleep for short periods of time. It was as if his mind was racing and it was heartbreaking to watch. I tried everything I could to make him better but ultimately he continued to decline. He got to where he didn't know who I was and would totally panic if I picked him up. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through because this little dog meant the world to me. He started losing weight even though he was eating great and got weaker and weaker. When I finally knew I had to let him go he weighed just over 2-1/2 lbs, down from his usual weight of 4 lbs.
> Watching our old guys age is so hard and I'm sorry you're going through this. There is a drug called Anipryl (generic is Selegiline) sp? and it helped my little guy tremendously for a few months. I'm told people have great success with it though if they get their dog on it early on. I didn't even hear about it until Tommy was well into his dementia. If you buy it in the US you can only get the name brand and it's very expensive. You can however with a prescription from your vet, get it from a Canadian pharmacy in generic form and it's a fraction of the cost.
> Why is your dog on Prozac? Is that for anxiety? If you do decide to consider the Anipryl make sure Babs can take it along with Prozac so there's not a bad drug interaction. I wish you all the best with her.


I also had a little dog with "canine cognitive disorder" except hers came one very rapidly following a splenectomy for a tumor (she had some early signs of aging before this, sleeping a lot and just in general slowing down but nothing compared to afterwards). The tumor turned out not to be cancer, which surely seemed like a miracle at the time, being that 86% of them are malignant; but in saving her life, we totally lost her mind. I was told if the tumor had ruptured at home, she would have died within minutes. Horrible, yes, but she wouldn't have spent the last 3 months of her life afraid and lost in her own home. I'll always wonder if something happened during the surgery, not a stroke per se, but just that she was under much longer than expected and the spleen ruptured while it was being removed and much much bleeding occurred. If I'd had any idea such a thing was possible, I wouldn't have put her through the surgery, hindsight being 20/20 and all. She spent the last 3 months of her life living with a stranger as far as she knew. She didn't know me or respond to me whatsoever. She just walked from room to room to room to room, over and over and over, walking up to a wall or a corner and standing staring, for hours on end. Even when she was so tired she'd begen to stagger, she'd lay down for maybe 30 minutes, then get up and start all over again. I was absolutely the most heart-breaking thing I've ever seen. I'm crying just remembering. 

Sorry, not really helpful to the OP, but just to say it's not pretty, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I dearly hope the explanation for your dog is something else entirely, something easily fixed and/or controlled.


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## Rvent (Apr 15, 2012)

that is awful, I am so sorry, make me tear up as well.... I don't think I could handle her not knowing me that alone would just break my heart.


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## Nana52 (Apr 28, 2012)

Rvent said:


> that is awful, I am so sorry, make me tear up as well.... I don't think I could handle her not knowing me that alone would just break my heart.


It was told that it's very much like Alzheimer's disease in humans, where the sufferer doesn't know his/her spouse or children, everyone they once loved and who loves them still. I would reach for her, and she'd walk past me like I wasn't even there. I'd pick her up to hold her and try to comfort/soothe her (and maybe myself as well), and it scared her to death; she would just struggle and cry until I put her down so that she could return to her pacing aimlessly from room to room. She had always slept right next to my pillow, but would completely panic if I picked her up to be on the bed with me. I came to fear that my efforts to "reach" her was going to cause her to hurt herself. For all intents and purposes, my Hannah was gone. I'm sorry; this not helping you, and I'm feeling her loss all over again. 

I'll pray that you and your sweet girl will not be facing something similar.


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## Donna Little (May 31, 2011)

Nana52 said:


> It was told that it's very much like Alzheimer's disease in humans, where the sufferer doesn't know his/her spouse or children, everyone they once loved and who loves them still. I would reach for her, and she'd walk past me like I wasn't even there. I'd pick her up to hold her and try to comfort/soothe her (and maybe myself as well), and it scared her to death; she would just struggle and cry until I put her down so that she could return to her pacing aimlessly from room to room. She had always slept right next to my pillow, but would completely panic if I picked her up to be on the bed with me. I came to fear that my efforts to "reach" her was going to cause her to hurt herself. For all intents and purposes, my Hannah was gone. I'm sorry; this not helping you, and I'm feeling her loss all over again.
> 
> I'll pray that you and your sweet girl will not be facing something similar.


This is exactly what Tommy was like. Toward the end there would be the rare occasion that he'd allow me to hold him and I would sit as long as he'd let me and just soak it in. Last month was a year since I lost him and it seems like it was just yesterday.
Hopefully there will be good answers for Babs and you won't have to go through what we've gone through.


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## Nana52 (Apr 28, 2012)

Donna Little said:


> This is exactly what Tommy was like. Toward the end there would be the rare occasion that he'd allow me to hold him and I would sit as long as he'd let me and just soak it in. Last month was a year since I lost him and it seems like it was just yesterday.
> Hopefully there will be good answers for Babs and you won't have to go through what we've gone through.


I lost Hannah just a few days before Christmas last year, still pretty fresh to me, and Christmas really sucked big time! It takes a long time to get past these things, if one ever does, doesn't it? From your lips to God's ears, good luck for Babs.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

Goodness after reading all this I am really hoping it is something else, good luck. Hopefully they find something. I'm going to start a new thread because I'm maybe going to have to make a decision.

I'm so sorry for all of you.


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