More old age musing

Miss Happy is being weird lately. For the last 2 weeks, every day, she doesn't eat in the morning. Anyone who knows Happy knows that her whole existence kind of revolves around food, so this is odd for her.

Thing is, she does eat it eventually. If it's offered to her again in a couple hours, she'll eat it. And dinner is never an issue. But in the morning she goes through her whole "OMG BREAKFAST FOOD YES" routine, and then just... walks away from it. She runs up the stairs, whines, tap dances all over the kitchen and begs intensely like she's been starved her whole life, and then you put the food down and she sniffs it and walks away. Why do you freak out and beg for it if you're not going to eat!!

She's "normal" otherwise. Like I have no reason to believe there's an illness. Is she just... losing her mind? For the most part she seems to have her wits about her in other situations, although she does get lost in the backyard sometimes.

Mostly just curious if this is some sort of common senior problem that others have experienced. I'm not really worried about it.

Tucker has been doing the exact same thing for about the same amount of time. If we leave it down long enough he'll sometimes decide to wander over and eat it, but he's reluctant. Other times he won't touch it at all, won't even come over and sniff it. One time when he turned up his nose I put it in a toy and he had no issues eating it from there. It's only breakfast, he always eats dinner.

We've been assuming it has something to do with the heat, but we are a little worried.

I wondered about the heat, too. I lot of people and animals don't like to eat when it's hot (myself included). Missy was that way.

I would just keep an eye on her it's good that you notice these things, good owners are the best bet and health advocate for aging pets . Do her teeth look okay? If she's acting otherwise normal then I wouldn't worry too much.

You did mention her getting lost in the backyard, though, and that would be a little more "raising the attention flag" to me. Is it her eyesight? Or state of confusion?

Maddie was Rx with canine cognitive dysfunction... Which is basically like dementia or similar in dogs. We started her on some supplements and stuff and so far all of the issues we were having have reversed. now, I know eventually she'll worsen... But catching it early is the key to that!

I'm not saying omg I think your dog has CCD!! But it is something to keep in mind. A lot of the time ailments as passed off as "just again" when it's not "just"

Bailey started doing that when we noticed she was nauseous. She started taking Famotidine with each meal. For a while we had to increase that to Sucralfate before meals but now she's back to just Famotidine with her meals.

Good luck.

Good thoughts for Happy!

It's definitely her mind. As an example, she's had issues with stairs since the day we got her. She needs "permission" to go up them - she often will stand at the bottom of the stairs, bark, and then needs someone to go wave for her to come up. This is usually, somehow, not a problem outside, but sometimes she will stand at the bottom of the deck stairs and bark for someone to give her permission to come up. Fine. However now more frequently she will like, stand next to the pile of firewood (not near the deck) and bark at that, until someone goes to get her. Or she'll just be in other random areas of the yard and need "rescuing."

Apparently she's just increasingly barky during the day, which during the week I'm not around until after dinner and not really aware of the situation, but my mom is home and gets annoyed by it. The dogs get fed dinner at 5pm and it's been normal for Happy to start getting antsy at like 3 or 4. Well now my mom says she pretty much starts barking at NOON and doesn't settle down until after dinner. I've told her to just keep her in my bedroom when she starts doing that but apparently that just makes her bark even more.

I frequently see old dogs having issues at night time, but Happy seems to be the opposite and has daytime issues? I don't know. Molly never had any of these problems as an old lady!