Our bulldog is 11 years old and has been going downhill with dementia for a couple of years now. She is otherwise in good health although recently it seems her hearing and eyesight are deteroriating. We got her as a rescue 4 years ago and at first she was pretty placid and would sit happily of an evening with us on the sofa and snooze. After we had some building work done she suddenly started refusing to go into our kitchen which is where she used to sleep. We couldn't have her in our room as she is too loud due to her breathing. She ended up finding a place to sleep in the boiler cupboard upstairs which she was happy with. After 6 months she refused to sleep there and ended up on the landing.
Around this time she started becoming aggressive with visitors to our house. She has very few teeth due to dental problems (presumably her previous owners neglected her in this respect) and never managed to hurt anyone but she snapped at peoples ankles if she decided she didn't like them (this was, and is, completely random from what we can see and the visitors didn't approach her most of the time). She also started weeing in the house more than before (she's always been a bit of a nightmare for jumping on beds/fabric sofas and weeing so she's not allowed it certain rooms alone) sometimes weeing right in front of me when she has full and obvious access to the garden. Due to this we had to stop her sleeping on the landing as she kept weeing on the carpet. Also one night DS came out of his room to use the bathroom and she went for his ankles. So a babygate went on the stairs and we made her a bedroom in our utility room which means she can get away and hide and it's warm and comfortable. If we have visitors she tends to get shut in here although not for long generally.
During the day she tends to sleep a fair amount and go off to lie in the garden, in the shed, cupboard under the stairs - basically away from us. She refuses to go out for walks and has done for a couple of years. Come about 7pm she tends to want company. Which is fine with us! But she is just agitated more and more at this time. She pants constantly and paces around. She gets up on the sofa (with help as she can't jump up anymore) but won't lay still to be stroked just paces the sofa, climbs on the back of the sofa and tries to sit on my shoulder (that is not comfortable), tries to jump to another sofa to my DH but either can't get there or does then immediately jumps back to the floor and does more pacing or claws at my legs to get back on my sofa. Then she wants to go in and out of the back door constantly so we are up and down closing and opening the door and it's bloody freezing. From 7pm until we go to bed it is constant and to be honest we are at the end of our tethers. Vet when we last saw them said bar a little arthritis in her hips she is in good health. If she was in pain she wouldn't be calm the rest of the day and night (although she does pace a bit between our bedtime and around midnight). If she wanted attention she would get it - she chooses to go off and not get affection! She could be bored I suppose but seeing that she won't walk and never wants to play I'm not sure what else to do. The only thing that makes her happy is food.
Any ideas would be appreciated!