Senility? or a behaviour issues? heeellpp

[Doglog]

Hi All, I'm not sure whether this should be in health or here in behavioural, but here goes.
5years ago The most wonder rescue GSDX came into my life, shes always been a bit quirky/odd but never anything that stood out as something to worry about.
Shes now 8 yrs old. She loves her food and walks, shes fed first thing on a morning and again in the evening, and gets 2/3 walks inbetween, shes always been a bit lazy...once she'd been fed she'd go to bed and we'd not see her until we called her!! but she seems to have suddenly changed, come 6pm+ she wants "something", and as soon as anyone moves (watching tv and go to put the kettle on for example) she leaps up wagging her tail wanting "something, she doesn't seem to be aknowledging when shes been fed, the morning routine is and always has been thatshe goes back to bed after breakfast at least once a week now she'll pace around for 20 mins before finally lying down. On an evening she'll 5/7 days she'll do this "waiting for something, excited thing"/unsettled even when shes been fed, given an extra walk etc.
she did have blood tests just over a month ago (unrelated to anything) so i can't see it being a health issue.
Is this senility?

[GSDSunshine]

Maybe she wants to play?

[Doglog]

Originally Posted By: GSDSunshineMaybe she wants to play?

That possible, we do play a lot, but its a different stance, to when we play. Its as if she wants to go somewhere, for example when she knows its dinnertime she runs ahead then comes back to check we're coming as if to remind us the way!! i think thats the best way to describe it, its as if she wants to be followed to do "something", but no idea what

[3K9Mom]

When you say you had blood work done, what exactly was done? I'd want thyroid levels fully checked out.

My guess though, is that your girl is bored. We often assume that our dogs are happy with the lives they've always lived. But my experience is that's not the case. My senior girl hit a spot in her life somewhat similar to this. She did need thyroid meds, but it seemed something else was going on.

I took an agility class with her. She was 15 yrs old. She wasn't the fastest dog in class, and she didn't jump the highest. But she learned the obstacles quickly and was confident on them (unlike many of the younger dogs). I also took her on different walks, started to take her to different places. I realized that *I* had gotten into a routine with her. We used to do all sorts of new and exciting things. But well, we had the new dog, and he took a lot of attention. Plus, when we were young, I was single; we moved a lot; and were just on the go a lot more. But now we had a house and things had slowly become settled. By most people's standards, we are very active, but by ours, we had slowed down. My girl still got LOTS of attention, but I wasn't working hard enough to keep her mentally stimulated.

After 16 years, she had been to all sorts of places and had done a lot. So it required me to be creative to come up with new and interesting things to do. Fortunately, my trainer also had a dog who had just hit his senior years. He is a competitive agility dog and her demo dog for her classes. He's always on the go. But he was getting bored too. So we saw both of our dogs doing the same sorts of things.

I just started to change up my girl's schedule. She was doing swimming water therapy for years. So I brought her to a new place that did treadmill therapy. After the agility class, I enrolled her into some obedience classes. She knew all of the skills of course, but it was somewhere to go, new dogs and people to meet. I taught her tricks, which was lots of fun. We always travelled a lot, but I made a point of going to new places (instead of favorite campgrounds especially), where she would be able to explore and have new adventures. We just started to pack up the vehicle and go away every weekend that we possibly could.

I found that the sort of behavior you're describing went away. Her brain was being stimulated, and she was satisfied. Best of all, when she went to the bridge in August, I was satisfied that she had never stopped exploring and living life to the fullest (even when she was quite sick) until the very end.