Hi!

My Pomeranian Chihuahua mix is turning 15 this year. She still looks amazing but walking is getting harder for her. Her back kinda comes up and her back hips and legs struggle sometimes. I end up carrying her for 70% of her walk and she walks the last block home. She can still run and walk fast in bursts when she’s excited but sometimes her back leg gives out or gets stuck on uneven grass etc. She gets so frustrated because she wants to play and run so much.

I keep seeing Instagram ads for Jope, DogisHuman, and I saw something with NAD. I currently give her Wuffes and I think it’s helped but it’s been a year now and I wonder if I should switch it or add something to it.

Can anyone share their experiences?

Sorry long post: My guy is 16 1/2. He was diagnosed with “moderate” hip arthritis and also IVDD 9 months ago. I had taken him to a doggie orthopedic specialist when his back legs started giving him trouble. She recommended Carprofen and Amantadine, both of which have seemed to help until recently. She also suggested Librela. However, after reading a bit about Librela I decided against it because of its not being recommended for IVDD or for dogs with neurological issues. His pain seemed to pretty well handled although he was panting at times and having anxiety at night. I knew that the nighttime anxiety could be dementia , and he also has a heart murmur which could be causing the panting when he anxious (said the vet). I would try to give him Tramadol and/or gabapentin at night, but it made his walking so much worse than I then tried not to. About 3 weeks ago his symptoms became worse and for his sake we are seriously considering euthanasia. He’s panting more, vocalizing more and now doing it in the daytime and even with his pain meds. I called the specialist and she said that I really should (and should have already) try the Librela. I told her my concerns and she didn’t say much. My primary vet also said if it’s between euthanasia and Librela, try the Librela. What do you guys think?

My 13-year old baby started having health issues about a year ago with irregular liver enzymes, which we later found out was due to gallbladder sludge. After treating with Denamarin and Ursodiol, his liver and gallbladder were back to normal, but his ultrasound and bloodwork showed Stage 1 kidney disease levels. At that time six months ago, they said just to keep an eye on him and recheck and that it could progress slowly. We rechecked yesterday and bloodwork and urine sample was consistent with Stage 3!! This is a devastating diagnosis. The vet said the progression is sometime rapid once they turn a certain age.

I don't know how much longer we have with him, but he is happy and acting normally other than he sleeps a bit more and is slower to react when we come home. We are going to start on the Hills Science Diet k/d food tonight. Any tips or stories of successful management (even though I know it isn't reversible) are appreciated.

I have a Miniature Schnauzer that turned 14 a few months back . We used to call her a “vacuum “ because she would eat anything and everything if given the chance . These days she straight up stopped eating , which is something i thought i would never witness in this lifetime. I tried to hand feed her and encourage her go eat but she just refuses and goes away. She’s mostly sleeping and barely reacting when touched or called . Its getting to the point where hearing her bark or seeing her wag her tail is surprising.

I genuinely don’t know what to do , I’m aware that this is a sign that she may be ready to go but the anticipatory grief is killing me ( crying as i’m writing this btw) . The thought that I’m just starting to live my life (early 20’s) and the end of hers is definitely coming soon is devastating me.

Is anyone else dealing with this kind of stuff right now? How do i manage to get over this once it’s over?

I'm struggling to know if it's time to euthanize my dog and could use some outside perspective/opinions.

My dog is 100lb Mastiff that will be 10 years old in December. He started losing weight early this year and having symptoms of doggie dementia. Wandering, panting, pacing all around the house. I took him to the vet in February for a senior bloodwork/urinalysis to see what we could find. He was diagnosed with kidney disease. He has protein losing nephropathy where essentially he was losing protein through his urine. We got him on 40mg of Telmisartan and he seems to be responding well to that. He has stopped losing weight. But the pacing and panting hasn't really changed.

His medications in addition to the telmisartan include 600mg Gabapentin BID for the pacing/panting to try keep him settled. 0.7mg thyro-tab BID for his hypothyroidism and he gets Purina ND kidney diet and fortiflora on his food.

Now I must say that we have a very sensitive boy. He gets very nervous at the vet and it's always a bit of an undertaking when we go. I brought him back after a couple weeks of telmisartan meds to do a recheck for his bloodwork to make sure it was safe for him to stay on the medication and check for anemia. It took 3 people including a doctor over 20 minutes to draw blood on him. (This was kinda hard for me to believe, as I used to work at a veterinary hospital and have drawn blood from him before. Dude's got big veins). Anyway, he was so stressed that on our way out he had diarrhea all over the front sidewalk. But not just diarrhea, bloody diarrhea. So. Much. Blood. It was like someone poured a glass full of blood on the sidewalk. I thought he was dying. It was traumatic for him, me, and my 4 year old daughter. The vet chalked it up to extreme stress and to let them know if it continued.

I took him home and his bleeding stopped and I gave him some probiotic for a few days and all seemed good. However, since then he's had intermittent bloody diarrhea. So for the past 5 months on again off again. Now the probiotic that helped it before has stopped working. I reached out to the vet. We tried about a week's worth of Metronidazole antibiotic and it did nothing. He's having accidents in the house and one was no poop just a puddle of blood. I called the vet again and recommended we do a longer course of antibiotics and Proviable. We did the 48 hr dosage of the proviable paste and are continuing the powder once daily. It's been 6 days and he's still just pooping blood. Every single time he goes it's red blood, tarry and very soft.

The vet said that we can do an ultrasound ($800 +/- sedation; upwards of $1000) but that still might not give us any answers and would have to do further digging. I'm really leery about bringing him back in for exploratory diagnostics when he gets so stressed. I'm feeling like he should have had some response by now to the antibiotics if they were going to help him. I really hate that he's just shitting blood everyday, panting and seeming understandably uncomfortable.

What are your opinions? Give the antibiotics a full month (another 3 weeks) while he keeps shitting blood everyday? Accept that this is the progression of his disease(s) and schedule In-Home Euthanasia?

Thanks for your feedback.

I have a Miniature Schnauzer who is 15 years and 8 months old. Shes a spoiled little thing who was never crate trained and runs the household. She’s in pretty good health overall, honestly. About 3 years ago she had a spell that we thought was a seizure but the vet thinks was just “old dog syndrome” or something like that but she’s bounced back well. The only lingering symptoms there is that she’s not at balanced as she was so she sometimes falls easily. She has hip pain that we give her chews and medicine for and you can tell it hurts her when she walks stiffly sometimes. Other times she’s like a puppy and she running around playful. She sounds like she has trouble breathing at night sometimes but when I bring her to the vet they say she sounds healthy overall. She also eats pretty well still and doesn’t really seem to have any problems there. She is deaf and has vision problems, but she can still see enough to not run into a lot of walls. The doctor did say that she has dementia.

She has terrible anxiety though and I’m in the process of selling my house. She’s lived with me, my mother, my brother, and both of their dogs so she’s gotten used to that way of life. Now that they’re all moved out, she doesn’t calm easily. She walks back and forth in my house from one door to the other and just does that for hours at a time. If I leave to go anywhere she panics though. She also doesn’t sit well in the car and shakes, likely from anxiety, any time we’re in a car. She’s always seemed to like them but she pants heavily and shakes so I don’t know if it’s excitement or nerves. Lately I’ve been bringing her places in the car and I worry it’s a lot for her. Also, when I bring her out anywhere she spins in circles. I’m not sure if she’s looking for me, overwhelmed, or just trying to investigate with her limited senses but she will do a 360, stop for about a second or two, and do another one. On repeat, constantly.

I don’t want to put her down prematurely since she doesn’t appear to be in that much pain and she’s still eating but with a move to a new place (I don’t have a house yet so I might be hopping city to city for a few months until I decide where to live) and her anxiety, I worry that it’s wrong of me to keep her around. It would be lots of new places and car rides and traveling and I don’t know what to do.

Obviously I don’t need medical advise in the sense of a diagnosis but I just don’t know how to weigh the “quality of life” conversation. My vet wasn’t a huge help last time I asked them.

Edited to add: she was house trained for about the first
10-12 years of her life but then she started using the bathroom in the house. Now she just decides to use the bathroom if she doesn’t feel like going out. I’d say that it’s about 60%/40% using the bathroom inside vs outside. She also wear a diaper to sleep in because she can’t always hold her bladder at night. If I move and take her with me, it’ll be a diaper 24/7 because I can’t have her using the bathroom at a rental or a friend’s.

Not the first post from her vacation, nor the last but the pictures from there make me happy and I hope they can make others smile, too.

It's so nice to see her roam free outdoors there, and rest when and where she wants. That's a luxury she doesn't have at home.

We just found out on Monday that my 11 year old, field Irish setter, Copper, has cancer all over his spleen. He has lost 15 pounds and is barely drinking and hasn't eaten anything in a few days. They offered to do a biopsy to confirm, but we can't afford treatment so getting the confirmation won't do much. The vet said the spleen was completely mottled looking on the ultrasound and she believes it's highly likely that it's some kind of lymphoma. They gave us Prednisone with the hopes that it would spur him to eat and drink more. He's had two doses now since yesterday, but still refuses to eat and only drinks a small amount. I scheduled a euthanasia appointment for tomorrow morning, but I worry I'm not giving him enough time for the Prednisone to work. I don't want him to suffer, but he is still getting up and going outside, sniffing things, trying to catch flies, etc. He mostly lays around sleeping, but he still has interest in watching the birds and saying hi to us when we come home. My biggest concern is that he has completely stopped eating and barely drinks anything. I just don't want to give up on him if there's a chance he'd get better. We know some people who had 2 more years with their pup after going through something similar. The Prednisone shrank their dogs tumors and gave him his appetite back. I hoped it would do the same for our boy, but I don't know how long to give it.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

We miss you and love you Tuna bear ❤️

The account was removed before we could send out Thank Yous! Most people did NOT write their names on the gift receipts, but, please contact us if you send something!

Yesterday was the day I had to say goodbye to my old man. He was 15.5 years old. I’ve had him since I was 19 years old and I’m 34 now. Such a long time with the most amazing dog in the world and now idk what I do. He grew up with me, he’s saved me more times than I can count. I just want my dog back, yall. I miss him so much it hurts.

Edit: I understand the sentiment behind the suggestions of getting another dog, or fostering. I have my boyfriend’s dog, and my two cats I can still love on. I don’t have the time, or energy right now to foster or adopt a new dog. I don’t even have enough energy to get through the day right now or to feed myself. I have to get through this one day at a time and when the time is right, I’ll allow a dog to come back into my life that I can pour my all into again 🖤

My dog Chili is 14 years and 9 months old. She has been suffering from severe dementia symptoms for the last seven months. She is especially scared outside and we don't go out anymore, only for her doing her business. She eats with gusto. But she has extreme restlessness, can't sleep properly. She also has other health issues but the restlessness is very difficult to manage. Only theanine works (she doesn't tolerate any chemical medication like gabapentin). Hericium worked for a few weeks. But right now I feel desperate because her symptoms are getting harder to manage by the day. She also can't stay alone, gets extreme panic attacks if I leave her alone. So I'm not leaving her alone. I'm her sole caregiver so after seven months of always staying with her in our apartment that doesn't have a garden or a balcony is taking its toll on me. My sister visits us twice a week and Chili still recognizes her. But meeting everyone else stresses her out enormously so I had to tell people not to come over.

She still seems to be content in her own little world. But her quality of life is pretty non existent at this point. She doesn't seem to be in severe pain though which is the reason why I haven't put her to sleep yet.

Dementia is such a horrible illness.

I just needed to vent. Thank you for reading this and I'm grateful for this community here on reddit.

I rescued my old doggie a few years ago and when it gets hot he begins to have strange behavior. He will go into the dirt and just lay in the dirt. Is this normal behavior or should I be worried? He has a heart condition and normally stays inside but since he was a stray and most likely had always been on the street he prefers being outside when he can. None of my other dogs do this so I wanted to make sure

This is our last morning together (yesterday). I made a post two nights ago about thinking it was time, and I was right.

Yesterday morning after we went outside, he looked at me and I knew. The look I was so nervous and obsession about seeing, was right there in front of me.

We had someone come to the house, take his paw print and allow our other dog to be there as well. It was the worst day of my life, the pain is unbearable, and the love is so worth it. I don't know how I'll live without him, but I will figure it out. 14 years is amazing for a big ole boy like him, and I am so honored to be his momma for 10 of them. He came out of the woods, covered in ticks having no idea what his life would hold, and he just became the happiest pumpkin you ever did see. I always wondered if soul dogs were real, because I was assuming we'd all have multiple dogs in our lives, but I really know now. He was and is my soul dog. He was with me through my 20s and we formed together as full beings. He's my partner and I'll love him forever.

my first ever, and still greatest christmas present . theres a 13 day period every year where we’re the same age and that so magical to me

I was pointed to this sub and wanted animal lovers to know how wonderful she was.

I look forward to contributing more to this sub

I'm still in disbelief honestly. I was walking my dogs and I see one chihuahua bolt from its house and make a bee line right towards us. That dog sniffs us so I think all is cool. Then the second one comes a-racin at us and bites her on the leg!

The little fucker was 5 lbs soaking wet compared to her, 24 lbs, and her brother 70 lbs right next to her. Those little dogs have a lot of guts to be so stupid. Obviously I shouted at them and I had to kick the air around them to keep the dogs from trying again because there is only so much this little girl will take before she will defend herself, and rightly so. The owner slowly meandered over and didn't even acknowledge me hardly.

If I want to report the bite, I have to go to the police station to start the process. That seems like a lot of work for something that I'm not sure even had teeth because her leg was completely unscathed. But I am now carrying my air horn with me again. Opal is going to be 18 in December and her age is catching up to her in general but she is completely fine. I have a feeling she is not going to be very friendly around little taco bell style chihuahuas anymore, though.

Absolutely no respect for the elderly out here on the streets!!!

Indy will be tuning 15 in less than a few weeks, still up for a 1.5mi morning walk.

Showing off the scraped up eyebrow he got chasing bunnies last week

When physical mobility slows down, it's super easy for senior dogs to get bored or anxious. I've been trying to focus more on "mental exercise" instead of long walks.
Frozen Greek yogurt or pumpkin puree keeps them busy and calms anxiety.
Extremely slow walks where they just sniff whatever they want. 10 mins of sniffing burns way more brain energy than a fast walk!
How do you keep your golden agers mentally stimulated when their bodies start slowing down?