Our pets amuse us in lots of ways when they are young. They have the required energy and liveliness during their young age. However, as they grow old, they start suffering from the typical old-age health problems, like arthritis, incontinence, liver disease and even dementia. Pets can’t divulge their problems to us and so, we should be very careful in finding out if they are suffering from a disease. Here are some preventive measures we can take for dementia in dogs.
It has been seen that dog’s declined cognitive abilities can be diagnosed as early as 7 years of age, although most dog parents don’t realize them up to her/his age of 10 years. Dogs given special training for agility or competitions are diagnosed earlier because of a decline in their performance, but common pet dogs are not diagnosed this early. Ideally you should get your dog tested in a laboratory. However, unfortunately, these labs are not so easily available to all dog parents. So, what you can do?
You can carefully observe your dog as s/he grows old and see if:
However, it’s also recommended not to self-diagnose that your dog is undergoing dementia from these signs. These or one of these signs can be because of other factors too, like another medical condition, environmental factors, side effects of a drug, etc. So, you better take your dog to your vet and find out what exactly is the problem.
You don’t have to panic if your dog is showing the signs of dementia. The good news is you can treat or at least stop the progression of this condition. If your dog is still young, you can even prevent this from happening.
Diet: An antioxidant-rich diet has been proven to improve the learning ability in dogs and a subsequent reduction in cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CDS) symptoms. Your dog’s diet should include vitamins A, C and E, L-Carnitine and Alpha-lipoic acid, along with other ingredients. So, you should give fruits, vegetables in the form of tomato pomace, spinach flakes, carrot granules, grape pomace, citrus pulp etc to your dog.
Exercise: Dogs having arthritis and showing CDS symptoms at the same time when given exercise for arthritis showed improvement in CDS symptoms too. Therefore you should discuss with your vet and set an exercise schedule for your dog.
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