I have a dog, described to us when we got her as a pit/boxer mix, which looks about right. We were told she was four when we got her, which would make her about 8/9, though I suspect she is older.
She has always been somewhat clumsy–would run into walls or stumble over curbs. But this behavior has gotten worse in the last couple of months. She is constantly running into things, even in our house, which she ought to know very well.
She’s also started getting “lost”–I’ll call her to the kitchen from the living room, which is a pretty straight shot, and she’ll wander off in the wrong direction. Last night my wife found her “trapped” between an open door and the wall–she could have backed out or pushed the door aside, but my wife had turn on the light and lead her out of the room.
Anyone else seen this behavior or know what causes it?
Thanks–in reading about both, senility seems more likely. The weird thing is that she’s always had some of those behaviors, but getting lost in the house seems like the tell. It’s the first symptom listed everywhere I read about it.
I apologize, I’M the one with the senility, I confused ODVD with “Cognitive Dysfunction” (another phrase for senility). Anipryl is the brand name for Selegiline which is one med for CD. Good luck.
Take a look at her eyes. If they look like they are flickering back and forth it could be Vertigo. Also is she throwing up? That is also a sign of vertigo.
We’ve been giving it to our 14.5 YO Golden Retriever/Border Collie mix for a couple months. Some behaviors have slacked off, some still present. Our vet said it may take a few months to have real success. Of course, YMMV.
Here’s a page from a place we’ve started buying them from.
That’s what happened to my Golden Retriever, Friday, right before he died. He would get stuck in corners and he wouldn’t be able to get out by himself. Then he started pacing, all night long he would just pace. I started sleeping on the floor in the family room with him, so he cold pace all he wanted, but still be with me.
It was awful, I hope what’s happening to your baby is something different.
We have a little pit who’s always been clumsy; she’s also reluctant to walk on slick surfaces and often kicks a hind leg way out to one side to steady herself. She holds he back legs in funny positions.
Eventually an unrelated crisis led us to getting an MRI on her and they diagnosed hydrocephaly. Note that our girl has almost none of the symptoms described in that link; she’s just slow to make decisions and assess new things, a little clumsy, and a little wobbly. Curiously, even though it’s congenital (from birth), there’s a treatment – our vet told us the ordinary over-the-counter human anti-heartburn drug omeprazole reduces cerebrospinal fluid in the brains of dogs up to 26%. So she’s on 10 mg of omeprazole daily.
Unless your vet is the source for this opinion, I would not be so sure. Dogs are amazingly adaptive, and it’s easy t miss the signs that their vision has deteriorated. The behavior you are describing could easily be a dog who is trying to respond to auditory signals in place of visual cues.
I had a mixed breed dog a few years ago who, at age 11, began to show some of the same behaviors you describe. If someone had asked me if she could see, I would have said, with confidence, YES.
My vet diagnosed a significant loss of sight in both eyes. She could still see a little bit, but basically she was just seeing a world of bright light, or varying degrees of shadows. But she had replaced the eyesight with her ears, and her nose, and I would have never guessed.
Hope this is not the case for your furball, but she was completely blind within three years. Good news is she had adapted, and with a few safety measures in the house to protect her from falls, she did just fine until passing at a ripe old age of 17.
The vet says her eyesight is going fuzzy, but the behavior sounds like dementia. Gonna try her on selegiline for a few weeks. She mentioned MRI but we’ll just try the medication.
MRI = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ + anesthesia, which an older dog may not wake up from. Very tricky.
Selegiline might take longer than a few weeks to see results, YMMV. An aside: when you mentioned the dementia symptoms, did your vet suggest Selegiline or did the vet say Yeah, why not? when YOU suggested Selegiline? If the former–good vet, have a cookie, keep him/her. If the latter–BAD vet, no cookie, time to shop for new vet.
