Help - doggy second childhood?

elsien

Mutt is 13 ish, and while never a model of good behaviour has mellowed slightly into old age and left most of her bad habits behind. (I thought.) For the last 10 years she has stayed at my mother's at least once a week for 24 hours while I'm at work and has always been fine with this.
Last night she
-stole and ate mums false teeth
-climbed on the table, nicked mums coat, ate all the tissues of the pocket, then pulled it onto the floor to use as a bed
-used the rug as a tuggy toy and wellied it round the room knocking things off the sides
- ate a plant and rolled the pot round the floor, covering the whole floor in soil
- threw the resulting greenery up in her box
-had the fruit out of the bowl and played football with the apples and grapefruit
-knocked her foot (which had a cut but had been healing) and left the room looking like a scene from the texas chain saw massacre.
All except the teeth happened overnight while mum was in bed, so she didn't hear a thing and was not impressed when she opened the dining room door to the devastation this morning.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm most concerned about - the cost of replacing mums teeth, the fact that mutt seems to have eaten one tooth and some of the plate (we can't find all the bits) or that I need to persuade mum to have her again on Monday night as I'm working again.:eek:
Meanwhile mutt is full of the joys and not at all sheepish. All I can think of is a surplus of energy as she's had another urine infection (which is now on the mend) and a cut paw so she's not had much exercise the last couple of days. But she's been a lazy so-and-so for ages and hasn't been wanting to walk even before she got ill.

Nothing else has changed - her routine is the same as always. Any ideas anyone - do old dogs lose the plot a bit and have we got more of this to come, or has she just had a one-off naughty 24 hours?
(I've got the vet booked for Monday anyway for a once over to follow up on the urine infection)

Beckyy

How much exercise does she have a day? Has she ever shown signed of seperation anxiety?

There_Goes_Trouble

elsien wrote: »

do old dogs lose the plot a bit and have we got more of this to come, or has she just had a one-off naughty 24 hours?
(I've got the vet booked for Monday anyway for a once over to follow up on the urine infection)

A vet check is a good idea, but yes, they can. My old dog never stole a thing until she turned 12, then nothing (food-wise) was safe!! Before that point I could put a plate of food on the floor and leave the room and she wouldn't touch it, but after she was 12 I couldn't even leave a grain of rice on the kitchen worktop! And she was badly arthritic too, I don't know how she got up there! She always had a thing for shredding paper/tissues too and this got worse with age.

There is a condition called 'canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome' which is like a kind of canine alzheimers, but this doesn't seem to fit 'naughty' behaviour changes!

I just put it down to age and loved her all the more for it!

elsien

Exercise is about an hour a day - used to be more but with arthritis and getting older that's now too much for her. Over the last week it's only been about 20 mins a day as she's been poorly and kept lying down on the pavement and refusing to move.
And she doesn't know the meaning of separation anxiety - food, warmth and a fuss, and she's anyones. Happily trots off into kennels without a backwards glance. I find it more upsetting than she does.:rotfl:

When I went to pick her up this evening and got the full saga, I couldn't stop laughing which didn't help. A slighly gummy less than impressed mother giving me grief while mutt sat there looking like butter wouldn't melt.

jackomdj

We lost our dog earlier this year. A few years ago he started doing things he would not have before... he would climb onto the sofa, mostly if we were out of the room but occasionally if we were in the room when we told him to get off he would look at us as if to ask why. He would also lick a plate on the floor if we had finished a TV dinner & the plate was waiting for the other prson to finish, again something he never used to do. We were certain it was his memory.

However like There goes Trouble said it does not fit with the "naughtyness" unless she was truely regressing to puppyhood!

elsien

jackomdj wrote: »

However like There goes Trouble said it does not fit with the "naughtyness" unless she was truely regressing to puppyhood!

I seriously hope not, I don't think I could go through all that again.
This is out of character for her lately though - she's always been a handful, but even in her prime this would have been quite impressive in such a short space of time.

twinklie

I'm really sorry but I laughed. I would have been mortified if it was my pooch but the way you wrote it had me in stitches. i have no helpful response at all. Just wanted to confess that I laughed.

bouncydog1

Its the equivalent of doggy senile dementia - our old springer used to do it (used to occasionally go back to the time before she was house trained as well which wasn't so funny)!

They have days of utter madness followed by days of total sleep when the additional exercise catches up. Make the most of it!

candygirl

Awww she sounds adorabubble:T:Tpmsl about the teeth:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:My two are both six, and he's like and old man, and she is still like a pup!!:eek:

There_Goes_Trouble

twinklie wrote: »

Just wanted to confess that I laughed.

Me too. Sorry.

Hope things have settled down a bit now. With Pippa it was like flicking a switch on her 12th birthday. Almost like "I'm officically old now, I do what I like and you can't stop me."

Jackomdj - I'd forgotten about the furniture.... she'd never been allowed on the furniture as she was long coated and would be wet/muddy for ages after a walk, and since she was walked every day she was always muddy! Anyway one day she just blatently got up on the chair and settled down without so much as a glance in my direction and that was that. It suddenly became her chair and she would lie in it every night after that and if I tried to stop her she'd just wait until my back was turned and be up there again. Eventually I gave in and covered the chair for her.... just like she knew I would!!

elsien

Thanks - she's back to normal today (well, normal for her), as if yesterday never happened.
And she's been doing the chair thing for a while now, along with the "my poor old bones" grumble - loved your piccy.
Probably a good thing we've got the vet tomorrow - the walks are now non-existent, as she's hurt the pad so every time we set foot out of doors it starts bleeding again and is slowly getting worse. My poor carpets will never be the same again.

Edit - it also didn't help when mum phoned the dentist for an emergency appointment and could hear the giggles from the other end of the phone.