Has anyone dealt with it?

Dog dementia?

If so, yeah we had some with our old pekingese's, they just wander around, stick their head in a corner, stop eating good....just act kinda listless with no clue. No cure either.
Oh, and more "mistakes" in the house, that's always a good time....

Levetirecetam (keppra) off label has helped a lot of dogs. It’s worth a trial run

Keppra? Like the stuff for seizures? My sister took that for a while

Yes Dog dementia.

My golden starts crying in the evening until around10:00. I give her a bunch of meds trying to put off the inevitable.

Just wondering if more can be done?

What exactly are you treating with this?

It is considered off label use for dementia and similar types of occurrences and changes in behavior/personality that otherwise can be ruled out as medical causes. Yes coyote, the same stuff for seizures

There is a supplement called Neutricks for dogs you can look into. Similar to Prevagen but I haven’t seen much success in dogs who are already crazy brain.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. It’s hard to see a beloved pet not be themselves anymore.

I believe the humane thing to do is to put the dog down.

Keith

Thanks

My first thought was I wonder how long it would take to get that reply

Longer than I figured it would. But it's your dog and you know it and what is best for it. I kept a dog alive long after most others would have, but she was my dog and I could tell she was not in much if any pain by the way she was acting. When she got to the point that I could tell she was in pain, I put her down. Nobody on here knows your dog's situation. That's between you and dog... don't let anyone else talk you into a decision you may regret.

yep

It's got to be terrible for a dog, crying in terror because it cannot recognize it's surroundings or the people around it. You chose to share this on a public forum. What reason is there for not giving it a humane death, besides trying to delay the inevitable loss?

It truly hurts to have to put a beloved pet down, but I believe we absolutely owe it them to end their suffering in a humane manner.

I'm sorry that you have to go through this.

Keith

My question was on open forum! I asked if there was things I could do to put off the inevitable. Lots of dog owners here.

I have a good vet and she is doing a lot to extend my dogs quality of life and we owe it to our dogs for their years of service.

We have put many of our dogs down over our 65 years of marriage. Dementia is a new illness in our dogs that was a simple question about life!

Thanks to everyone for your responses!

had to put the wife's dog down the 17th.

i had been a running joke , gallows humor who was going first , wife with cancer or the geriatric chihuahua

well , the wife went first by 2 1/2 months

the dog didn't seem to have dementia , other than it forgot where to pee

more so it was in kidney failure and drinking so much it was peeing everywhere by the time I decided it was enough she wasn't comfortable and I was mopping 5+ times a day with bleach water.

I was just going to do it , then grew a conscience about the time I was going to take her to the farm for the deed.
made a appointment for the next morning , the Vet started the himming and hahhing he didn't have a treatment method that wasn't just throwing money at it for weeks more life and I said if putting her down is a reasonable thing to do , just do it , about 30 minutes later I regretted that to the tune of 202 dollars but (not doing it , just the extra hundred),but whatever, it is the price of not wondering if my diagnosis was right , I mean it was spot on. but I was thinking like 140 cause I swear it cost me 40 bucks last time and this time had a exam , not much of one but an exam

Our vet knows us, knows our dogs, knows we know dogs...if we say it's time, we get no arguments...He was a special forces vet and doesn't try to blow smoke up your skirt..

When the dog looks like it's in pain, has cancer, or is otherwise suffering Doc gets the call. I used to do it myself but miss Daisy frowns on that....so we pay.
It's a tough decision... only you can tell when it's time.

yes, our old beagle has sundowners. I think she's around 12?

Last winter when the days were short, she would get confused in the evenings. She'd get lost in the house, going to the wrong door to outside (she's been in this house since she was 9 months old).

She has a doggie door from the back yard into the garage. There's a small cage in the corner of the garage with a bed - just a place she can go when she's in the back yard. She always goes into the back yard to pee right before bed, but last winter she would get confused during that and sometimes go to her bed in the garage. She didn't really want to be there, and she wasn't being disobedient. She was just confused on what she's supposed to do. We'd have to go find her and coax her back into the house then she'd happily go to her crate for bed.

When spring came and the days got longer, she got back to normal. I'm wondering how this winter will go.

Unrelated, but another sign of her aging: She had also gotten a lot less friendly with other dogs and less outgoing. There were some suble signs of joint pain, and the vet offered a monthly shot for joint pain. I forget what its called, but its a biologic type medication. It rolled back the clock a few years on her. She instantly became more outgoing again with other dogs (that must have been hesitation because she was in pain and afraid to play). She wanted longer walks again, and she had more fun when taken to the land again. She's been on that a couple years and joint pain seems to be coming back again. But it was a huge help for quite a while.

She's been a good dog and we're certainly MUCH closer to the end of her life than the beginning. But at this moment she still has a high quality of life. I'm curious how this winter will go. I suspect she'll get confused again. But if we can get through the winter, then she might have another good summer ahead of her.

We had to put the cat down a few weeks ago. That was hard on the wife & daughter.

yotetrapper30 Well said, it is personal......jk

As far as the cost of euthanasia it is not just the procedure itself, the IV catheter placement and the drugs used. have to take into context what it takes to keep the vet hospital up and running and paying your technicians, etc.
yes it costs twice as much as it did ten years ago but so does everything else.