This will be a short post to this blog. Back in April I wrote about my cousin's dog having dementia. Her dog is still living well enough and functioning. Calling this post "part 2" may have been a little misleading. This isn't about her dog. It's actually about someone else's dog.
Recently our family went on a camping trip with a group of teenagers. It was an outdoor training weekend for the teens. There were other adults there and we found ourselves having some free time to sit and talk. What did we talk about? Our dogs, of course.
James is one of the men we were talking to. We were talking about the challenges of taking care of a Senior Dog. You know.....a dog that is getting up there in age and has more needs than ever. We were talking about changes in diet, having teeth removed, etc. But then James said something that struck a chord with me. He said, "My dog does the weirdest thing. He will jump up and run into an empty room, stare at the wall, and start trembling. He is doing it more and more often."
I remembered how I looked up Doggy Dementia while writing the post on my cousin's dog. If you'll remember, the disorder is actually called Canine Cognitive Dysfunction(CCD). Randomly going into odd corners or rooms and staring at the wall, trembling....these were signs of CCD! So I asked James how old his dog is. "Fourteen," he replied.
"James, your dog has dementia."
I know it's a sad topic. His dog is old and really showing it. But it was kind of interesting to me that through doing this blog, I was familiar with what was happening to James' dog. I didn't get into detail. I only told him I knew what it was because a cousin's dog had some of the same behaviors. I suggested he do an internet search on the topic and he would see for himself.
I guess all I'm saying here is that you go through things or you learn about things for a reason. And that reason is often to share what you have learned with others. I was glad I knew what it was and could tell James.
