Elderly dog advice

[Tab]

There probably really isn't any "advice" for this but wondering if anyone else has heard of such a thing.

We have three dogs. The eldest is a rescue, Shepherd/Rottweiler mix, I think he's about 16 years old. Plays with the younger dogs but often likes to just sleep on the couch.

The last year or so he's been doing some "doggie dementia" things; he gets lost in thought sometimes, but generally is pretty lucid. However he's developed this habit to walking around to wastebaskets and rooting in them and pulling out paper. There's no food in them, and he doesn't do anything with the paper once he gets it out; he just likes to poke his head in, root around, and get something.

Of course, our office floor (and bathroom too) gets littered with these retrieved pieces of paper. One obvious solution is to continually empty the wastebasket, but frankly if there was just one single item in it, he'd probably take that. The bathroom has a spring top (foot pedal) closed basket, but according to my son he goes in, noses the cover up, and then goes rooting around.

We're resigned to dealing with this until he passes (which might be this year) but wondering if anyone else has dealt with this.

Thanks

- Tab

[OnyxCollie]

1. I have a dog that does that.

She's young and I think she does it just to get attention.

[Tab]

3. Yeah, I don't think he looks for attention

he does it when no one's around just as often as he does when we are.

Despite him having other dogs around and getting plenty of attention to us, it reminds me of when I'm at a loss as to what to eat or something and just go around opening up cabinets and stuff even though I really know what's in there (particularly since I just looked there 10 minutes ago).

[Stinky The Clown]

2. No specific advice on that, but elderly dogs are not unlike elderly humans.

I'm glad you're there for the old man.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. That is an odd thing to just start doing,

but it seems like one of the least problematic things that he could start doing as he ages. The only advice that I have is to keep picking up the papers and throwing them away.....obviously this is giving him some sort of comfort or pleasure, and it isn't that big a deal....not like eating the paper, or shredding it, or peeing in the corner.

[Tab]

5. Oh, he occasionally pees in the corner too.

Fortunately not too often. I agree it's the lesser of many potential elderly sins, but still a PITA sometimes.

[Voice for Peace]

6. Maybe just taking a new hobby, some simple pleasure, in his declining years

Imagine the smells in the baskets, the enclosed smelly space,
each bin a little different than the last, and never the same
from one day to the next..

Imagine the pleasant soft feeling of a tissue on the nose,
especially a little stinky one, or the crispy feeling of a wrapper
that once had something tasty in it.

Imagine all the basket smells, those fragrant molecules.. right
here, all over his safe home.. a humble hobby for retirement,
one that doesn't require much youthful energy.

It's probably good for him if he enjoys it. Maybe it's his
way of warding off dementia.. keeping track of all the
trash bins around his house, and their contents.

[IrishAyes]

10. That's sweet.

I bet you're right.

[IrishAyes]

7. Lots of older dogs

get dementia to one degree or another. My beloved Chow furkid, Freedom, spent the last couple of her 16 years half blind and senile as a doorpost. She'd walk into a corner and couldn't extricate herself w/o my help. Even so, she maintained her elegance and natural dignity somehow. I'd give 16 years of my own life for another 16 with her and her sister Joy.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. "I'd give 16 years of my own life for another 16 with her and her sister Joy."

Ain't that the truth. Our payback for their unconditional love nd acceptance of us is hat we have to say goodbye. And yet they live on in our hearts.

[IrishAyes]

9. One of the few times Joy and Freedom quarreled

Was on our trip out here. I drove the moving van and they had to spend much of the day cooped up in the Dodge Grand Caravan on the transport. That's where I slept, and the first night I collapsed on my back in exhaustion with one dog on each side of me. They started seriously threatening each other - remember the stress they were under too - and all I could think to do was to stretch out my arms so each dog would have her very own part of me to hog. They spent awhile still standing over me, almost nose to nose, but they eventually settled down.

At one point Joy started to pant real hard even though it was 20 below outside, and that almost freaked me out. Fortunately I learned later that some animal shelters have recordings of just such sound that they play to quiet the dogs, because it's a calming behavior. I guess Joy realized we were all at the end of our ropes.

While my mind's on that awful trip, I want to tell one more story; we pulled in at a truckstop in the middle of a blizzard, and a married driver team urged me to hurry into the restaurant out of the cold. I said you bet, but first I have to walk my dogs and I'll be in as soon as I put them back in the van. The lady went a little ballistic on me because I was leaving my dogs in the van in all the fierce cold. I said lady, don't worry, they're Chows; they sleep in the snow like sled dogs. But she had a full head of steam already and wouldn't let go even with her husband trying to explain until I actually let the dogs out where she could see them. They looked like round fur balls in their full winter coats, and the first thing they did was to roll around in the snow. That calmed the lady down, and they actually bought me dinner.

[Walk away]

11. If he ever needs a Petsitter my Uncle Mack is available....

They would be perfect together. Mack takes all the papers out of my bill drawer and put them in unrelated stacks on the kitchen counter.
The plus side is that I tend to pay the bills before he visits. I'm guessing you folk really keep up with the waste baskets!

[nadine_mn]

12. That is kinda sweet

We have to put our garbage cans up or close the door to the rooms with them - our dogs love to dig in them for food, for random wrappers and worse bathroom garbage stuff.

Our two eldest dogs that have since passed on never really developed any senile behaviors. Our dogs now are 12 and 8 so we shall wait and see.

Everyone here has such sweet stories of their furbabies.

[Helen Reddy]

13. At 16

I am thrilled he is energetic enough to show some spirit!

Our old rescue when she was younger, would dig holes big enough to bury Rush Limbaugh's....ego. Now, she sleeps 28 hours a day and limps to her food bowl twice a day.

I love this girl so much! I know she will be passing soon, will never be ready for that.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. If you really think he has 'doggie dementia' try Anipryl.

http://vetmedicine.about.com/cs/diseasesall/a/aniprylseniors.htm