[I want to apologize profusely for my lack of activity here, despite me saying I was going to be more active again several months ago. There's some info on why under the cut. It's extremely heavy subject matter.]
[Since April or May, my dog has been exhibiting some really awful behavioral issues -- she'll hide behind furniture and get stuck there (e.g., behind the TV console, computers, bookcases), isn't sleeping well, can't settle... all at seemingly random, no trigger whatsoever. Some days she's herself. Others not. I highly suspect she has the dog equivalent to dementia, and have a consult with the dog equivalent of a neurologist next Monday, August 3rd. I've frankly had a shitton of anticipatory grief over this. Today she has been having an extremely difficult time from about 1PM onwards. Morning she was great. Most mornings she's excellent. Last night she did very well, slept with me, was her cheery self. Tonight, she's stressed, confused, can't settle. I have her in my office with the door closed; she has a comfy bed and den-like crate in there and there is nothing she can get stuck behind or underneath in there, unlike other parts of the house including my bedroom.
I miss my dog. I miss snuggles with her every night. We've been trying Reconcile (equivalent of prozac) and it's helped with her shyness, but not these alarming symptoms. She's been slowly developing them since March or April, and then they became extremely apparent from May onward. I don't know how much she sleeps when she does in my office.
She still eats, she still gets excited over things when she is not experiencing stress/hypervigilance or confusion, she still jumps on me in excitement when I ask her, "you wanna go for a walk with me?" So her quality of life is OK at this point, most of the time, I think. But, God, when she isn't doing well, it's bad. I feel horrible for getting frustrated with her at times during these episodes, where she might paw at me to go outside, at which point she'll pace aimlessly, panting, and refuse to return inside without me putting her back on a leash. When all this began, she was waking me multiple times per night to do this. I thought she had something physical wrong. Her blood tests are perfectly normal. Her spine has some mineralization/calcification between vertebrae, though, which an MRI may help inspect more closely. So she may be in chronic pain, and that may be causing her behavioral issues. It being at the same time every time it happens, however, makes me heavily suspect sundowning/dementia. Trazodone does not help her at all, so we got her off that in May. Gabapentin helped at first, but I'm unsure it is helping at all now.
If this truly is something as serious as I have reason to believe it may be -- canine cognitive dysfunction, or something else neurological -- that scares me greatly. I have already begun to confront the reality that she may not be with me much longer, possibly won't even see the end of the year, as I don't want her to suffer.
She's only 8, as far as I know. I adopted her five years ago this June, from a local shelter who knew nothing about her except that (1) she came on a transport from Lubbock, Texas and was suspected to have been 3 years old or so, (2) she was a very anxious girl, especially around people, and (3) she loves walks. Sniff walks are her favorite. Rolling around in the grass is a favorite of hers too. She's come out of her shell so much in the last 5 years, and it pains me immensely to see her confused and upset as she at times has been lately. It doesn't feel right, making her sleep in another room at times. But it's that or risk her getting tangled in wires or shocked or stuck behind furniture she stuffs herself behind, pacing and pacing and pacing, panting, unable to settle.
I'm a wreck. I've cried so much today, realizing I need to prepare myself for when the time comes that I'll have the single most difficult and heartbreaking decision to make I've ever had. I don't have any creativity at all in me at the moment, just anticipatory grief for an end I know is coming far sooner than I could have imagined even 6 months ago.]
