Changes In Your Aging Dog
Aging dogs are less adaptable to, and more adversely affected by, stress and change. Yet so many dog owners do not take this into consideration when making plans involving their older dog. For example, for years you and your dog enjoyed those races through the woods or around the playground. You may still enjoy it now, but your older dog possibly finds it difficult to keep up with you.
What used to be lots of fun may now make him a bit grouchy and force him to breathe abnormally hard. You have just redecorated the house, and what used to be your dog’s favorite spot to relax in, is now occupied by a piece of furniture. Your dog becomes restless, temperamental, may even urinate or defecate in the house or right on that piece of furniture, and you cannot understand why.
It is not necessary to baby or spoil a dog just because he is aging. In fact, this should be carefully avoided, as it is a trap into which many dog owners readily fall. You should encourage your older dog to take part in family life as always, but you must be alert to avoid undue stresses or unnecessary changes. That piece of new furniture does not have to stand on the exact spot where he has snoozed for more than ten years. In his mind, that spot is his personal territory. Even in his youth, such a loss would have been upsetting, but he would soon find another acceptable location. The older dog finds it more difficult to adjust and can develop undesirable behavior as a result.
A dog is both a dependent and an independent animal in his relationship with you. In youth, he will follow your every footstep even to the point of getting underfoot. His greatest joy is to be with you everywhere, and there are a few times he wants to be by himself. As he gets older, however, this will often change, and he may seek solitude much more of the time. He loves you still but, depending on his physical state, he just prefers to be by himself. He will play with you and be your companion, but do not expect necessarily the same kind of response you got from him when he was a lot younger.
Take care not to “kill him with kindness” by offering what you consider tasty morsels of human food such as cake, ice cream, bacon, or liver pate. Such sudden changes in diet can produce serious stomach and intestinal upset, resulting in profuse vomiting or diarrhea. It may also encourage your dog to refuse his normal food and hold out for the “goodies” which in time can cause severe nutritional imbalance.
Does Your Aging Dog Have Lymphosarcoma?
Accounting for better than five percent of all tumors known to occur in the dog, lymphosarcoma is the commonest malignancy seen in aging dogs, especially those in the eight to twelve-year range. Its cause is unknown and is relentlessly fatal, but early diagnosis combined with one or more of the therapy modes just described can comfortably prolong life for eight months to a year.
This tumor can develop in any organ or part of the body, and symptoms will naturally depend on the location. If it’s in the digestive system, there may be vomiting, prolonged diarrhea, and continuing weight loss despite a good or even ravenous appetite. The liver or spleen may become quite enlarged causing a “big belly.” Tumors in the chest can cause coughing and difficulty breathing, as can tumefied tonsils.
In the skin form, there may be many hard, reddened areas that ulcerate easily. Some dogs show tumor development in one or both eyes, usually in the iris or just under the cornea. Any or all of these can occur in one dog, but the commonest symptom is the enlargement of the lymph nodes located just under the skin on the back of the thighs, the front of the shoulders, and on either side of the throat near the jawbone. Such a dog may appear perfectly normal in all other ways and could misleadingly induce you to ignore the swellings until the tumor spreads further and causes obvious signs of illness.
A biopsy of an enlarged lymph node or suspicious skin will confirm the diagnosis. X-ray studies can confirm the additional disease in the chest or abdomen and are essential when there are no external tumors. Blood studies are also helpful, about half of the dogs with lymphosarcoma tumors also have leukemia. Most cases of lymphosarcoma involve multiple parts of the body, thereby making surgical excision of the tumors impractical, if not impossible.
Chemotherapy is the method most often used and initially, prednisone, a cortisone-like drug, is the medication generally prescribed. It makes your dog “feel better” and is less dangerous than most other effective drugs. These more toxic drugs may be used later on, or they are sometimes combined with the prednisone right from the beginning of therapy. Radiation treatments and immunotherapy are occasionally used as adjuncts to chemotherapy.
Watch For Pain Or Symptoms When Training The Aging Dog
Dogs very often tell you when they are in pain, although not always. Should you find the down placement very painful for your dog, and should he find it painful to lie down apart from his obedience lesson, then it may be more beneficial to dispense with the DOWN command altogether. These conditions vary with the individual dog so that ultimately you have to trust in your own evaluation of the situation and then follow your inclinations.
In no instance do we want to obedience-train an older dog at the expense of his reasonably physical and mental comfort? The Down-Stay serves to keep the dog out of your hair, and your company’s lap, for longer periods of time than a Sit-Stay. With an effective Down-Stay, you need not shoo him away in a strategic retreat to the basement or bathroom. Chances are that your older dog is fit enough to pester the company. If this is so, then he is certainly fit enough to learn the down.
In obedience training, you must behave like a cool, calm machine. You will be able to hold out longer, with less exhaustion, and your dog will learn more easily and more rapidly, realizing that you have the situation under control. Dogs will take advantage of their owners’ weaknesses, even at an older age, and this will only mean more difficult, resentful training, with more discomfort for both of you. Speak and act calmly, slowly, deliberately, rationally, and consistently if you want to maximize your training potential and the subsequent benefits that accrue both to you and to your older dog.
The older dog is no longer as efficient at regulating his body temperature. Fats are responsible for this. The older dog often tends to lose weight and some of the fatty components of his body. In effect, he is not that well insulated anymore. So, when obedience training the older dog, you must take care not to work him in extremes of heat and cold. This holds true for any dog, but more so for the older dog.
Constipation and incontinence can also be problems. It is important to allow the dog to relieve himself before and after an obedience session. If a dog suffers incontinence during the course of training, just ignore it and clean up later. Don’t allow a small puddle of urine to interfere with your training session. It is also important not to feed your dog just prior to or after an obedience-training session. Feeding before can upset his digestion, and feeding after can not only cause indigestion but can be interpreted as a bribe. This we never want to do. Don’t work your older dog to exhaustion. Several short sessions are always preferable to one long one.
