Struggling to tell where our elderly dog is “at” medically and emotionally
Our 14 year old Maltese/Poodle has diagnosed heart disease and airway disease. He’s on heart medication and a diuretic and at this point we’re mostly focused on keeping him comfortable and happy for however long he has left.
He also has pretty significant cataracts and is mostly blind now, plus what we suspect is canine dementia/cognitive decline. He’s become more confused over the last year — staring into space, getting unsettled at night sometimes, occasionally seeming disoriented etc.
The hard part is that we genuinely can’t tell where he’s “at” in terms of quality of life or whether we’re approaching the end.
Over the last week he’s had two collapse/fainting episodes where he suddenly couldn’t get up for about 5–10 minutes. Both times he recovered afterward. Today’s happened after a loose bowel movement. He’s also had diarrhoea a few times this week, including blood in the stool twice.
But then in between all of this… he still has periods where he seems like himself. From Friday–Tuesday he was genuinely bright, playful, eating, following us around etc.
Tonight after collapsing this morning he’s now:
wanting to play with a toy,
following us around,
but also acting unsettled,
growling more than usual,
and occasionally stopping to stare at the ceiling/roof.
Part of us wonders whether the ceiling staring/growling is dementia/confusion, part of us worries it’s neurological or related to the collapse episodes.
It’s this emotional whiplash of:
“is he okay and having a bad week?”
vs
“are we actually watching the beginning of the end?”
I think we’re struggling because he still has moments of joy and engagement, but the collapse episodes feel very serious and scary.
For anyone who has gone through end-stage heart disease/cognitive decline with an older dog:
what were the signs that told you things had shifted?
did things fluctuate a lot near the end?
how did you know when you were keeping them comfortable vs keeping them here for yourselves?
Would really appreciate hearing other people’s experiences because right now it feels very hard to read where he’s actually at.