# Golden Oldie's behavior changes



## Murphyboy (Mar 7, 2017)

Hi, I adopted my Golden Retriever from Golden Retriever rescue agency almost 12 years ago. He was supposedly 2 or 3 at the time that we adopted him. He did not have puppy teeth and was past the chewing stages and was calm for the most part when we got him. 

He has been the best dog. I have had 2 other Goldens before him and while I loved them too, this one just has a relationship with us that is so unique. My husband and I are both deaf and he knows it. He doesn't bark unless we look at him. He alerts us to let us know someone is at the door or if there is another noise going on that we need to be aware of. He responds well to sign language commands. You get it...he is "my" one of a kind dog!

Anyways, lately he has been going crazy at night. That is the only way I can describe it. He won't lay down, has knocked down quite a few things in our house over the last few weeks, wants to basically be in our lap at all times, and he pants excessively. We are losing sleep because we keep trying to figure out what we can do to help him. He slobbers a lot too because of the excessive panting. He looks up like he is looking at some kind of ghost every 10 minutes or so. We have had several people over to help us determine if it was the smoke alarm beeping, carbon monoxide detector, etc. Nothing. No weird noises. We also thought it might be because he is going deaf and/or blind, but so far...his senses seem intact. These weird behaviors ONLY happen at night. During the day, he is as sweet as can be but he is exhausted because he doesn't sleep the night before. 

I took him to the vet today. No obvious lumps/pain. I showed the vet a video of him at night and the only thing he can think of is that he has developed anxiety just at night. We had the vet draw blood (even though the vet didn't think it was necessary) just to make sure nothing else is going on. I should get the results for that in the next day or two. Does any of this sound familiar? Murphy is 13, almost 14 based on what we were told from the rescue agency. (I know we are VERY lucky to have a dog doing this well at this age, but the insaneness at night is driving US crazy!)


----------



## sirbailey (Feb 6, 2016)

This is odd indeed! Have you tried making it ' more like daytime"? (Keep the TV on, nightlights etc etc ...?)
Just a thought.


----------



## Pilgrim123 (Jul 26, 2014)

Welcome to the forum!
Pilgrim developed restlessness at night, too. He had cognitive dysfunction syndrome, commonly known as doggie dementia. One of his first signs which made us take him to the vets was his pacing the floor at night as if he was patrolling the house. Although there are medications for the syndrome, Pilgrim did not respond well and he went on to develop more symptoms such as getting lost in the house and incontinence. 
Good luck with your golden oldie.


----------



## ForeverSonnyAndBaileysDad (Mar 8, 2017)

You might consider asking vet if they will test your dog's blood ammonia level. If it's high you may need a liver function test. Our Sonny Boy behaved this way and he had hepatic (liver generated brain dysfunction) encephalopathy. Hope this is not the case with your Golden. Good luck with this.


----------



## Murphyboy (Mar 7, 2017)

We were actually afraid Murphy might have cognitive dysfunction syndrome. We looked up the symptoms about a month ago, when it all started. Everything fit this particular syndrome, but the vet never mentioned it yesterday. We ordered Cholodin for Murphy through the mail when we saw this was a possible treatment. It did not seem to do anything for him. If anything, he seemed a little worse.

How was Pilgrim diagnosed? Did anything ever happen during the day too? Murphy has had a few accidents, but usually it is because we have locked him out of our bedroom so we can get some sleep. If we leave the bedroom door open, he wakes us up anywhere from 2-5 times a night. I have set my limit at 2 per night, then he gets locked out. If the 2nd time is pretty early in the night (usually before 2 am), then he sometimes has an accident.

All of the bloodwork came back today. Everything was normal. They did several different tests so I am not sure what they would be looking for. 

Last night was a good night. We have about 2-3 good nights a week and then the rest are where he acts like he has full-blown anxiety. We were given Tramadol to help with his anxiety, but I did not give it to him last night. We are usually able to predict when he is going to have an episode. 

Thank you to those who replied. While I am very happy that his vet appointment and bloodwork came back normal, it still doesn't tell us why he acts this way only at night. Some nights it is very frustrating!


----------



## Pilgrim123 (Jul 26, 2014)

Pilgrim was diagnosed purely on his changes in behaviour. Apart from pacing, he's start barking at nothing at night. Then he started to get lost in the house. He'd go into the bathroom and stand with his head between the sink and the bath and not be able to work out how he could get out so would stand there barking until we came to rescue him, or walk into the wardrobe and need help to find us. He was arthritic and we'd built a ramp up the back stairs so he needn't worry about going in or out. Well, he'd stand at the bottom of the stairs and couldn't see how to get on the ramp. During the night at the end, he'd get up to relieve himself and leave a trail of poo or pee from his bed to the doggy door. Then he'd be unable to work out how to get back in. The vet diagnosed him when he I told them he had got lost in the bathroom twice and was barking at nothing at night. 
Hope this helps you. It sounds rather awful, now I wrote it down! But it was a reasonably slow process - almost two years - and it was never possible to say that he was X amount worse than he was yesterday. 
We ended his journey when he didn't recognise his favourite person in the world (our son, who only visited every couple of months) and needed help to get up. He looked so lost, even in familiar surroundings.


----------



## KKaren (Oct 29, 2014)

Murphy sounds like a wonderful wonderful golden. I'm sorry that he's having difficulty at night. My Merry also had some similar issues that I attributed to the start of doggie dementia, I was fortunate that it was not severe. Her behavior was to pace at night and also dig at the rug for several minutes. 

Some things that seemed to help for our situation were,
-I would try to break her out the the pattern of pacing and/or digging by walking her to another room, she usually paced and digged under the dining room table. When I moved her, I spent time petting and hugging with some treats

-I used some "Calming Essence" on her fur and sometimes I would place some in her mouth

- Benadryl- 

There are a couple of threads here that might also be of help.
http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/golden-retriever-senior-center/336898-canine-dementia.html

http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com...r/53187-senior-dog-dementia-what-do-best.html


----------



## sirbailey (Feb 6, 2016)

We ended his journey when he didn't recognise his favourite person in the world (our son, who only visited every couple of months) and needed help to get up. He looked so lost, even in familiar surroundings.


Poor baby! 
That must have been so hard for you.


----------



## danoon58 (Jul 1, 2015)

Although I have no first hand experience with doggie dementia here is a good article for fighting it:

9-Step Plan to Fight Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome in Pets

Good luck!


----------

