SIGH

[sholio]

I went out for a pleasant evening of touring the First Friday art events in town. I came home to discover the following ...

Comments

[kodiak_bear]

Been there and done that. Our elderly dog has dementia and has non-cortisol cushings, hypertension, hypothryoidism, and has the wasting away in his hind quarters. We have to carry him down the deck stairs and back up (90% of the time) so he doesn't hurt himself. He's going blind, doesn't hear well.

While there's not much you can do about the having to leave him alone during the day and coming home to that disaster (we've had this a couple of times even though there is literally only one day of the week where he has to be alone for 3 hours), we have made some changes that have made a huge difference at night.

1 -- We sedate him. This may seem mean to some but without it he will pace and be miserable all night long. We started with benadryl because it has a sedation affect on most dogs. Then when that was not effective we bumped up to his tramadol which was his prescriped pain medication for when his back was really hurting him. Then that dose started wearing down we bumped up to a full pill which is where we are now.

2-- We shut him in our room. We used to leave the door open so he was free to go get water and food in the wee hours. After multiple messes, getting stuck and once literally choking himself on a cord, we realized we had to confine him at night. Now when he does wake at night to go potty I hear him and can take him out. We've had maybe one night accident since this change. We also make sure he doesn't chow down right as we're going to bed.

3-- I've pushed back how late I go to bed as well. If I try to go to sleep at 9 he won't make it through the night. But if I go to bed at 1130, he'll usually make it to at least 7 am.

It's really a journey nursing an older dog through these events. Finding your older dog covered in his own feces and having it worn down into the floor from where they paced in it and got thoroughly stuck in it is really just ... there aren't words! It does make me thankful that we've very little carpet in our home LOL!

[sholio]

Sedation is not a bad idea. I think the worst thing about it at this point is that we've had to do SO many unpleasant things to her over the last couple of years (such as regularly washing/cutting poop out of her fur) that it's pretty clear she's come to associate humans with distress and pain rather than love and comfort. She doesn't like us or want to be around us anymore. This has resulted in a number of probably quite hilarious slow-motion chases around the living room for things like claw trimmings, because she can't move very fast, but she makes up for it with sheer stubborn inertia.