These Old Dogs

Oh, the travails of old dog companionship. Wasn’t it just a month or so ago, while Lucy was still with us, he was sleeping contentedly through the night? We’re pretty sure it was. Now? Well, somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 am we hear him downstairs, bleating. It’s usually Happy Wife who gets up and goes down to let him outside. Most often he’ll take a pee and then lay down in the snow in the middle of the yard. And stare, at nothing in particular. Or bark a few times at the northwest corner of the fence. But there’s nothing there. Eventually he gets cold and comes onto the porch and lays on his bed for awhile. After a time he paws at the door and wants back in. Happy Wife will get up from her makeshift bed on the couch and let him in. Once he resettles she can slip back up stairs without him knowing and come back to bed with me. Most nights, not all, he will then rest quietly until about 5:30 or 6:00 am. Then, copy/paste, except it’s me who’s on duty this time, wanting to let HW enjoy a little more sleep.

We tried Benadryl before bedtime. Didn’t seem to help restore his normal sleep cycle. Neither has Amitriptyline, which he’s also on. And Gabapentin for neurological pain. And Rimadyl, an anti-inflammatory.

I Googled “restless dogs at night.” Melatonin may work! Or Xanax! “Have you considered Selegiline?” Why no, I hadn’t. Says it helps some dogs in the throws of cognitive decline — nighttime relentlessness, reversed sleep cycles, barking into space. That kinda thing.

I offer my findings to HW as I prepare her morning latte (w/Eggnog — it’s that time of year!). She agrees we should try Xanax. He responded to it favorably before, she reminds me. Remember, we’d taken him to the vet to have him degassed and he came back home looking and behaving all panicky? Oh, right.

The advice I found included the caution not to scold a dog in cognitive decline. It’s like scolding an Alzheimer’s victim because he doesn’t understand. And equally futile.

Sometimes, usually on the weekends, when we sleep a little later and he’s been let outside (and back in) twice during the night, we’ll come downstairs and find him in “his” chair, zonked:

Whatchya gonna do.