He’s not better. He’s not going to get better. His condition, Canine Cognitive Dysfunction—dog dementia—is incurable. He won’t go back to being the dog he was before. He’s been diagnosed, he’s being treated, he’s being cared for the best I know how. He’s not better, but he is different.
I never would have guessed on the night the condition first struck my dog, eleven-plus years old—the frantic behavior, the frenzied discomfort, the frightening hours—that he could, that he would bounce back from the awful sudden onset that seemed so debilitating … and do so in a matter of weeks!
We spent the rest of spring together, when I’d feared he’d not see summer.
What happened? What made the difference? I believe it’s the medication that our veterinary team prescribed. I think the medication has allowed the anxiety his behavior was expressing to lessen. It worked quickly, to some degree, and the longer he’s been on the meds, the less anxious he seems overall—allowing me to be less anxious, too.
I think he and I had a pretty good relationship before CCD. I knew my dog fairly well, after living with him for over ten years. I have the luxury of the time needed to care for him now, under these new circumstances, with his new condition. I’m adequate at adjusting. Having him now less anxious makes my own adjusting easier. He communicates clearly when he is less anxious, so I understand better.
I look back now to some of the behaviors he’d started to exhibit before that awful night, behaviors that were probably “symptoms” of his condition when it was much too mild to be evident. Those symptoms continue, I recognize the behaviors, but overall I don’t find them distressing. Amusing, though, yes!
Wastebaskets. There’s not been a wastebasket available to a dog in my house since I first got a dog. Wastebaskets in my house do not live on the floor. Over the years, I’ve found handy but inaccessible-to-a-dog spots for wastebaskets. Plus (more complicated) many of those inaccessible-to-a-dog spots had to be made impossible for a cat to access during any time a cat or cats were in residence here.
Two wastebaskets in my house are kept on the floor—two small, light, rattan models, one on each side of the bed in the guest room, used only when there is a guest. The guest room is off-limits for dogs and for cats. As far as I know, my dog has not been interested in the guest room for the entire decade he’s lived in this house. Until … yup, you guessed it: he started wandering.
It never occurred to me because I never saw him doing it. He left no obvious evidence. He’d been “wandering” about ten feet from our regular bedroom, across the hall, into the guest room and, from what I can now guess, looking out the windows and … that’s right: investigating the wastebaskets.
He’s a paw dog. He demonstrated quite early in his life with me that behaviors done with a paw came naturally to him. He knew the cue “Paw” within weeks after he moved here. Various “tricks” involving a paw followed—shake, high-five, slap paw (he “slaps” my hand with his paw). “Paws up” became a Sandy trick (he was Sandy in “Annie” live on stage at our Civic Theatre). It’s not surprising that he would invent a “trick” he found rewarding, even when no human was involved—he pawed!
Once I identified the knocked-over wastebaskets as evidence of his guest-room visits, I started to see similar clues in other rooms around the house, rooms to which he had full or part-time access. On the floor of another second-story room, I found a light cardboard file box knocked over, its contents—small items I’d been collecting to put away elsewhere—strewn around nearby but not “messed with” in any obvious way (no licking, no chewing, no damage). It wasn’t what was in a wastebasket or a box that he was after; it was more that he was after the “feeling” of knocking it over?
Shortly after his diagnosis, after he had just started on the medication, he had one very restless night during which he could not settle, did not sleep. He paced around the very small bedroom, jumped up on the bed, then jumped off, finally falling asleep after hours of wakefulness. When I got up early that morning, I was more than surprised to find a laundry basket that had been on the floor by the closet, waiting for its contents to be put away, up-ended and its clean clothes strewn around on the floor! I learned my lesson: I’m not “tempting” him with anything like a wastebasket or a laundry basket or a box that might incite his newly rewarding “paw it over” behavior. I had to do that laundry twice!
Digging became another behavior he seems to find rewarding. It started with the throw rug on his side of the bed. The room has hardwood floors, so a rug with a rug pad in that location was necessary—it allowed his jumping up and jumping off to be more safe. He’d never messed with the rug until … CCD. That first night, his “early onset” behavior had included “digging up” the bedside rug, making a messy pile of it between the bed and the door to the room. It would have been dangerous for me to trip over it and dangerous for him not to have it placed correctly to cushion his jumping up and jumping off the bed.
The dug-up rug could be a safety hazard every time I walk to the door at night. I started turning the light on before I move to that side of the bed, then I stop to straighten out the rug and its pad before I leave the room. I have yet to stumble over it—so far, so good! Rug-digging has turned out to be a sign of his being more anxious than what is now usual for him. It is what it is; it’s my job to keep us both safe.
Oddly, he had been digging in dirt outside for the first time in his life before he started digging the rug. I don’t know for sure when it happened. The only place with a hole was right next to the faucet for outside water, so I hadn’t encountered it (as in almost fell over because of it!) until I hooked up the hose and watered for the first time this year. I’ve refilled the hole every time I’ve noticed it’s been dug again—for my own survival—and maybe it’s no longer rewarding for him to dig? We’ll see.
Oh, right—he also digs the bedcovers! It’s my bed, too, so obviously I notice—I might be in the bed when this particular digging is happening! His own bed, in his kennel in the bedroom, is fitted exactly to the size of the crate and totally solid—undiggable, it seems. I hope! I’ve stopped putting a clean dog towel on his side of the bed, something that I’ve done for most of his time here—way too easy to “dig” and therefore always in a messy heap or even fallen to the floor. I’ve found that old flannel sheets, one on top of another, make for a much less diggable bed cover—again, so far. I discourage him whenever I see the digging behavior about to start. He circles, he paws, I intervene. It seems to me that’s helping to diminish the frequency of the behavior. I hope that’s true!
I made a huge mistake the other day, one that could have happened anytime—it was a fluke. I use a baby gate in the bedroom doorway when I’ll be asleep and he’ll be sleeping on the bed with me. (I don’t allow him the run of the house if I’m not going to be aware of what he’s doing.) Of course, I have to take the baby gate out of the doorway so I can leave the room myself, put it back so he can’t leave, take it off to get back in the room myself—hassle! My baby gates are not the typical kind; they’re solid plexiglass with a hard plastic frame. I got them when I had ferrets because ferrets could not get through them nor climb them. They’re great baby gates, but … as I said, what a hassle.
One night recently, when I was very tired and sleepy, I left the room and, when I returned, I put the baby gate back in the doorway, but apparently failed to fasten it as tightly as I should have. My dog, the rascal, somehow poked his darn way out by pushing the baby gate a bit further open. With his nose?!? Who knows! (I don’t have security cameras inside the house.) MISTAKE! I didn’t hear him do it, I didn’t hear him leave, but I did hear his paw steps going down the stairs … and got up fast to retrieve him from the first floor and return him to the bedroom. Since that? Yes, I’ve caught him trying it again! Of course, he’s not a stupid dog, friends … even with CCD! This was my fault.
Is he still learning new information?
I’d say that he absolutely, surely is!
Am I still learning new information?
I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that it took me several weeks to figure out that he had been “getting lost” in the house. I thought it was impossible! Then one day, not long after I’d cleaned the windows of the French doors from the living room to the front hall, I saw some slimy smears on the inside of the windows—the side that could be accessed only from the living room. I grabbed the vinegar and cleaned up those spots. A day later? More smears. I finally had to admit that I’d forgotten I’d briefly taken the baby gate out of the door to the dining room (which has living-room access) to do something and … yeah, I hadn’t put the baby gate back in place immediately. He got in there.
He might still have been in the living room when I put the baby gate back. I admit I didn’t check! For however long the gate was open, he’d been in the dining and living rooms and, most likely, headed for the French doors because there he could see out into the front hall, where he wanted to be. Hence the nose slimes on the “inside” of the French door windows. He “forgot” how to get out or … who knows!
I haven’t removed the baby gate from that doorway since. Am I still learning? YES!
It’s summer now and we’re enjoying more time outside together. His recalls to come to the house are more predictable now—more calling by me (sorry, neighbors), while he stands at the back fence hoping his dear friend, our great neighbor on the other side of that fence, will come out to visit with him (more on that another time), he turns toward me (I might be “showing him the cookie”), he walks a few steps in my direction, then he stops to roll with great delight on the fresh, green grass, he gets up and … he runs, actually runs to the house—happy boy! I am so delighted with my running dog.
Photo by Val Hughes
He’s not better but he is different … almost like his same old self. I love him so much.
And I’m different, too.
Thanks for your concern and support—I’ll share more about my dog as we go!
