My darling boy is about to turn 15.
He's got a bunch of health conditions; heart failure, arthritis, tricky kidneys, his back legs are losing muscle tone, and he's going increasingly deaf.
But he's had all these conditions for a while and we've managed them really well. He's a big cuddlemonster who loves his walks (15-20 minute strolls every 4 hours), big snoozy naps, and still has bursts of the zoomies on grass.
Over the past week, things have started to shift.
He's stopped liking the bed he's had all his life – opting for the rug on hard floors over his bed.
For most of the mornings he's very, very clingy – standing and staring at me endlessly, panting and asking for a hand on him at all times. This eases up late morning, but it's hours at a time.
The past few nights, he's woken up a few times in the night and wandered around the bedroom, standing and staring at the door. I've managed to settle him, but then at 4am he's nudging me to wake up again, and I've ended up taking him out for a short walk and toilet.
And today he keeps walking up and down the stairs; he'll settle for a bit on me bed behind me as I work, but he seems very restless.
I did notice a few days ago that he seemed to have pulled a muscle or something had changed in his hindquarters - he can only lie down if he turns in one direction and not the other. If he goes the wrong way round he gets halfway down and quickly gets back up again as though something's hurting.
Could this all be a function of being in some pain? Or am I looking at the beginnings of dementia? Has anyone had experience of this, and can help shed some light on what's going on?
We have a vet appointment tomorrow, but the worries have got to me and I wanted to ask here in the meantime...