Of Pets and Old Age by Konnie Enos

 

Some months ago, noticed that Mabel wasn’t her usual energic self, something we could expect from an older dog, but this time her tail was also tucked under. If you know anything about dogs, a tucked-in tail is something to pay attention to.

We took her to our vet.

She ran a few tests and we concluded that something was up with her liver. The easiest solution was a course of medications. The hope was that it would cure the issues and things would be back to normal. We ended up trying a few different medicine regimens until we hit on the one that we are now using. It looks like she will have to take medicine every day for the rest of her life.

So now our normal routine includes giving Mabel her medications twice a day. It’s a good thing we discovered Pillpockets because our dogs like those “treats” and rarely realize there are pills inside them. (Not even when they watch us put the medicine in them.)

Mabel got in the habit of chomping down her food and then running to me to get her twice daily “treat.” Since we weren’t having to fight her about taking her medicines, it was easy enough for me to give them to her.

So, no issues.

Then in late April or early May, we noticed she was running to get her medications before she finished eating. However, we just had to redirect her once and she would finish eating.

I thought she liked the treat so much she didn’t want to wait, so I started dropping her Pillpocket in her bowl with her food. Problem solved.

Until it wasn’t.

Most of our dogs when they are eating will put their face in their bowl and not look up until they are finished. Mabel’s always been one to at least glance around while she’s eating. There’s even been a few times when she went running to a door barking her alerts only to remember she was eating and run back to her bowl.

A couple of weeks ago we noticed she was constantly leaving her bowl. To go bark at a door. To take a trip to the backyard. To bark at another one of our dogs she thinks is misbehaving. Pretty much any little noise could distract her from her food.

We started having to watch her eat and constantly reminding her to finish eating.

Then I noticed some concerning behaviors.

When we first got her she displayed some serious territorial issues and wouldn’t let any of our children on my bed. She barely allowed Jerry to get in our bed. With effort, we eventually trained those territorial tendencies out of her.

This last week alone we’ve had several near scuffles where she snapped at one of the other dogs, but we were able to intervene before it became a dog fight. At least twice, the dog she snapped at didn’t appreciate it and we nearly had a full-on fight as some of us humans waded in, pulling the combatants apart. Which just required getting ahold of Mabel and pulling her away from whichever dog she’d decided to fight.

Thankfully, we’ve managed to stop them before any blood was drawn.

So now, her aggression is returning and she’s not eating without a ton of coaching.

This time our vet called me. No, not because she thought something was wrong, but to let me know what her latest blood work looked like. I asked her about Mabel’s behaviors.

She agreed that it was odd how Mabel wouldn’t stick around to eat her food anymore. Then, as any good doctor would, she asked me about specific things going on with Mabel. One was diarrhea. Another was bumping into things. Another was about her sense of smell.

Okay, she doesn’t appear to be blind, and she doesn’t seem to have diarrhea. So, our vet told me some things I could try to entice her to eat.

So, we keep trying.

Now she is refusing to finish her meals and is still being aggressive with the other dogs.

My thoughts keep going to the conversation I had with her vet because there was one other reason why we might be seeing these new behaviors.

My dog, who is now 11 years old (about 65 in human years), might be experiencing dementia. My husband still thinks she is losing her eyesight, and that would be a lot easier to deal with than dementia, but we don’t know for sure yet what the issue is.

For right now, we’re still attempting to find solutions. If those continue to fail, we’ll have to run some more tests and see if there is anything medically that we can do.

All this on top of the stress of taking 15 credits.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. (I could use it.)