Another day/night with a 13 year old Bulldog with dementia:
Well my trick to getting Bueller settled at night isn’t working so well. That trick was to lay down with him by his mat when he gets restless at night. He would go to his mat and happily cuddle up and go to sleep. Well last night he was dry at least…
We were up on 2am, went out and peed, went back to mat, then up again 3am, drank water went back to his mat, then up at 4:45am I figured he probably had to pee again so got up with him and we stayed up…. So did the routine food, meds, butter bone, biscuit, tummy pill. Then usually he settles back in and goes to sleep but this morning NOPE….
Yesterday he was really tired all day and grumpy. The Dude was leery around him. He was OK with me but then again I don’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to. Now he is just sitting in the kitchen on the mat grunting at me and I have no idea what his problem is. I try to discipline him he isn’t getting it… mmmmm… now what?
Idea number one: Pick him up and put him on couch and see if that helps. Logic – maybe he has forgotten the routine as he does that a lot more lately… Not easy but I did that. Nope that didn’t work but I picked him up again and put him on the heat blanket… that WORKED. He is now licking his paws but no where close to sleeping, it is 6am now. The Dude is probably going to get up soon.
The Dude and I have noticed he is drinking more water than usual the past few days but then again maybe it is just that we are noticing “his doings” more (if that is possible) so the science data collection has started. So far today he has drank at 3am and at 5:30am…
Let the games begin….I know what you are thinking. The Dude is not ready yet and actually the reality of college for Bueller is starting to freak me out a little.. Sleeping or more correctly not sleeping is clouding my judgement.
I sit here trying to remember when this all started. (This is what one does when they are awake when they really should be sleeping) Bueller’s first dementia (VET calls it Cognitive Canine Behavior Disorder CCBD) started when he was 10 with one episode of pacing, not knowing where he was, then when he was 11 (so that’s 2014) his episodes happened enough to warrant a visit to the VET. The VET was wonderful and suggested we start him with a XANAX routine when they happened. Worked pretty good, he would stop pacing and then turn into this playful puppy, it was kind of cute, then he would settle in and go to sleep. This happened once in the night and it was about a 2 hour wake up experience. But easily managed.
2015 was when things started getting hard. His episodes happened a lot more. First one was in Feb during my sister’s visit. Then a month later with his episodes lasting longer. We had to kick him out of our bed because he wasn’t safe as he didn’t know where the bed ended and fell off with a fright during an mid-night episode. His hearing and eye sight really declined as well. Mid-2015 he randomly started peeing in his sleep but not a lot but enough we had to purchase a replacement couch because we were unprepared without pee pads.
Then the Fall of 2015 is when his dementia really kicked in, his episodes were longer (1 hour of not knowing who he is, eyes dilated, pacing) he wasn’t really sleeping at night and his day time play totally disappeared. Huge decline started around Thanksgiving. He would be up at least twice a night, day time he would mostly just sleep or sit in the kitchen barking for something we could not figure out what…
We made it through the holidays but I was getting extremely sleep deprived and The Dude was also frustrated with the demands our beloved pet was requiring. It was heart breaking and exhausting. OO I already said that didn’t I… about Christmas time He started having episodes weekly, in addition his moods changed. He started getting grumpy, nipped at me a couple of times and at The Dude. No good.
So January came and we decided we better take Bueller to the Vet and have the talk. We explained that his episode behaviors have changed to grumpy instead of happy puppy and the XANAX just put him to sleep instead of the happy relaxed puppy it use to do to him. The Vet suspected that in addition to his dementia that he is probably having pain issues in his mouth after inspection. We decided to started him on Anti-biotics and see if his behavior improved before making any decisions about college. The anti-biotics helped a lot, his was eating easier and we noticed a slightly less grumpy pooch.
I dread going to bed at night because this is when my Bueller suffers the most for some reason. So The Dude and I have a new plan. We are going to give him his pain meds at night when he wakes to Pee usually between 11pm-2am. The Vet said it won’t hurt him just make him more sleepy so that is the plan. He will probably pee more but we have the pads. Then next week we are going to make the call for College but we are going to have one last weekend with him because I just can’t bare it. The Dude is my ROCK…
As I look around the house it has become one huge dog crate, pee pads everywhere, boy when Bueller does go to college the Bulldog Rescue Click to see about Bulldog Haven NW is going to get a ton of Bulldog stuff.
OK folks no crying….. ok a little, no A LOT…..
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