Another weekend, another senior dog digest from Grey Whiskers. Let’s get right into it!

In this week’s issue here’s what we are sniffing out

• Understanding the “Senior” in Senior Dogs

• An October Recipe

Understanding the term “Senior Dog”

I use a lot of terms to describe an older pup when I talk about and work with them. I thought it might be a good idea to break those down a little. It seems to me that these days, dogs spend close to half of their lives technically classified as seniors.

So when is a dog considered a senior? There’s a little more variance in this answer than there used to be when our first generation of dogs was getting old. Back then, we were told they were seniors at around 8 years old (both were medium-sized). My guess is that was the average of all dog sizes and breeds combined. In the case of Macy, our first dog, our vet told us she was a senior at 8, but she lived till 16… by that definition, she was at the midpoint of her life when we were told she was a senior. She was still active, playful, and mischievous until she was about 13. These days the answer seems to be much more subjective, and based on the size and life expectancy of a breed. While small dogs don’t reach old age till they are 11-12, giant breed dogs such as Great Danes and Great Pyrenees are considered seniors around the age of 7.

It seems to me that classifying dogs into more specific stages of aging is not really very common across the board. Chronological age is one thing, but for my definition at least, narrowing down stages of aging is necessary. The health and functionality a dog has at 8 is definitely not the same as it is at 14, let alone 18. When someone reaches out to me to groom an 8-year-old dog, I have a conversation with them about their dog’s physical health and mental functioning before setting an appointment. If I saw every dog who was technically a senior but still doing fine in a grooming salon, I wouldn’t have space in my schedule left for the closer to-end-of-life seniors who have no other options for grooming. Maybe because my educational background is in dealing with senior people, I tend to define stages of aging a little further to help me talk to people about where their dogs fall in the aging process.

In most cases, early senior dogs (7-13 depending on size and breed) are still acting like younger or middle-aged dogs. They have no health problems or minor, easily managed ones that don’t affect them on a daily basis. They still sleep and eat well, exercise regularly, and love to play. For my purposes, they’re also doing well at the grooming salons. My dog Uma is 13 1/2 and I would classify her in this stage, even though she’s much older. She’s just over 30 pounds and has a bit of arthritis but she walks a few miles most days, plays at home, and aside from being a bit deaf acts like an 8-year-old. She’s got great muscle tone for her age, too. If your dog is in this category, you might be getting comments from people about how she doesn’t seem like a senior dog at all.

Once a dog starts having trouble with mobility, such as being stiff when getting up from a nap, trouble standing for long periods of time, walks getting shorter, playing less, sleeping more, then I tend to classify them as “elderly.” They’ve still got great quality of life, but how their time is spent is definitely changing. These dogs may also be receiving new diagnoses at the vet, such as arthritis, dental disease, kidney or liver disease. They may be getting lumps and bumps, and show minor signs of dementia, quite possibly unrecognized as being dementia at this point.

Again, for grooming purposes, these dogs are handling the time at the groomer’s well enough but may be taking longer naps once they come home, or they require a day or so to recover from the experience. If this was your parent or grandparent, they might be having trouble with higher-level tasks at home; doing laundry or cleaning the house is pretty difficult, as are shopping and cooking, but they’re still doing fine with personal hygiene tasks.

You might have heard this next term from your vet, although most of my clients are not specifically familiar with it. A dog can be defined as geriatric when issues she has really start to interfere with daily life (both hers and her human’s!). In humans, this would be trouble with tasks such as showering, dressing, taking medicines, using the bathroom alone, etc. People at this age tend to need consistent help from family or other caregivers to continue to live at home or they’ve moved in with a family member or to an assisted living/nursing home.

Dogs at this stage may have advanced diagnoses such as heart issues, neurological conditions, cancer, kidney/liver failure, arthritis that requires help from a human with getting up or down, trouble standing steadily for any length of time or going potty, or having accidents in the house. There may be more clear signs of dementia, even if they don’t have a diagnosis. They may have appetite issues - hand feeding needed, special diet preferences, or refusing to eat at certain times of day. They also need help up and down stairs, if they can do them at all. Often, this stage is where I see people changing their own lives and schedules to fit the dog’s needs such as:

• Scheduling less time away from home

• Sleeping on couches so the dog isn’t left alone downstairs if she can’t climb them anymore

• Using in-home pet sitters for the dog vs taking them to kennels,

• Not traveling at all.

• Changing the home set up with pee pads, yoga mats, throw rugs, ramps for couches and outside steps,

• Adding gates for rooms or barricades at stairs, or by furniture the dog could get stuck underneath.

For grooming purposes, these dogs require either special care at the groomer (a change to the process for them, or an extra person to handle them) OR they’re being refused - this is where I come in! If the groomer is still seeing them, the dog spends days recovering: has trouble walking, possibly limps for a few days if they have arthritis in the legs or neck/back, and needs pain medicine to manage after a groom.

Dogs in this period of life tend to have days that are being measured in good vs bad. They have setbacks; trips to the ER or vet, stays at the hospital, new diagnoses, and changes in medications to manage progressing diseases. They may have a few bad days, or a bad scare, which they recover from, but maybe not to their previous level of health or functioning. Their quality of life fluctuates, sometimes daily. When I talk to clients at this stage, they have a lot of stress around much of what is happening on a day to day basis, which means their own quality of life is affected too. The dogs in many cases have some really good days, and some which are either really bad or just not great overall. I have a lot of conversations with people about quality of life at this point because we’re all worried about that for our pets.

This last phase of life is where I really spend most of my time. My husband and I adopt dogs in this part of life, and most of the dogs I see daily are somewhere between the elderly and the geriatric phases. This time with a pet is my favorite, although it can be a very difficult time. I recommend making sure you have support while you’re navigating the senior years with your dog. Foster a friendship or conversations with people around you who have had older dogs, have them now, or have a passion for them. There’s comfort in company. Caring for a geriatric dog can be so emotional… and as I mentioned in the dementia newsletter, there’s still that judgment around admitting your emotional overload to people who think this is “just a dog.” As much as we’re able to look at our beloved dogs’ lives objectively, it does help us to be better caregivers to them - and to ourselves as well.

Recipes

From one of my favorite online recipe resources, Minimalist Baker, this is a very easy recipe to put together. It’s a nice soft muffin, perfect for those who have little to no teeth. Uma and I skipped the “frosting” and I didn’t hear any complaints from her. I did use the coconut oil as written to try the recipe, but it might work to substitute unsweetened applesauce for that.

UNSWEETENED Peanut Butter Banana CUPCAKES for pups! 🧁⁠

🍌 1 medium ripe banana, mashed⁠

🥜 1/4 cup natural unsweetened peanut butter (peanuts only, NO XYLITOL)⁠

🥚 1 egg ⁠

🥥 2 Tbsp coconut oil⁠

🟤 1/4 tsp cinnamon⁠

💧 1/2 cup water⁠

🌾 3/4 cup oat flour⁠

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (176 C) and line a cupcake pan with 6 cupcake liners.⁠

2. In a medium bowl, mix the mashed banana, peanut butter, egg, coconut oil, and cinnamon. Add the water and stir well. Add the oat flour and stir. It should look like pancake batter.⁠

3. Divide the batter between the 6 cupcake liners and bake for 22-25 minutes.⁠

4. Let cool for 30-45 minutes and frost with unsweetened whipped cream and a mini dog bone.

1 muffin serves one medium-large dog. Split into halves or quarters for little ones!

🐶 Sniffing Out Senior Dog News 📰

❤️ Is your dog happy? There’s 1 way to tell - and no, it’s not a wagging tail

👴 13-Year-Old Dog Saves Owner

Senior Dog Humor

How did we do with this week’s newsletter?

• High Paws

• Pooped in the House