My dog will be 13 next month, has always been a very high energy dog, so much so that before this year he’d be mistaken for a puppy at least once a week. No previous health issues at all. It’s just me and him at home and he’s the only dog I’ve ever had.
InJanuary he had extremely severe gastroenteritis and is still on the special probiotic food as any attempts at non probiotic food lead to diarrhoea again.
In the last month or so his behaviour has changed quite a bit, extremely clingy, distressed if left home alone and overall seems confused with our usual routines. For example the click on his harness that we have had for 5 years makes him jump/scared and before he wouldn’t even notice.
He’s waking me at least twice in the night to use the bathroom, throughout the day he can’t seem to settle like he used to, constantly wants to either be in the garden or just be touched.
We’ve been back to the vets who have said that there’s nothing obviously wrong and this is probably age related but without more invasive testing they just don’t know, his blood and urine all came back as perfectly normal which surprised the vet due to his age. He’s not in any pain but just seems throughly unsettled.
Is this just the reality of a senior dog? He's not having bad days but they are not great days anymore. It feels like I’m watching him slowly deteriorate in front of me and I’m wondering how do I know when it’s time.
I can’t bear the thought of losing him to a fit or a nasty way of dying and I’m wondering if the decision to let him go before he gets worse would be the right decision here. I feel very strongly that it’s my responsibility to make sure he has as few bad days as possible.
Any advice would be much appreciated here, being on my own I’m finding it very tough to know what to do