[Dailydrool] Dementia questions

[Pamela McQuade via Dailydrool]

Ten years ago--can it really have been that long ago? We fostered a 
young basset named Oliver. His people have adored him since the day he 
met them. But since they moved recently they have been having 
trouble--let me allow Erica Reitman​ to tell her own story:



"We moved about 2 weeks ago into our new house and it's been super duper 
hard on our little guy. He's going to be 14 in a couple of months and he 
has almost every symptom of dementia now, despite the fact that he's 
still in pretty good shape otherwise.



"It's been manifesting itself since we moved in these kind of doggie 
panic attacks that he has been having int he middle of the night every 
night. He'll usually start around 3am and then he wakes up and paces 
back and forth between our front door and back door (he tries to scratch 
at the door, but we block it so he can't). It's not about going to the 
bathroom as we've taken him out to make sure, but he gets into sort of a 
manic state where he's panting and drooling and just basically seems to 
be in a panic. We've been using some valium that we got from the vet 
along with some tramadol (also from the vet) and it's definitely helped 
a bit, but it's not stopping it. We also started him on Selegeline which 
is sometimes helpful in dogs for cognitive dysfunction, but that takes 3 
weeks or so to kick in normally."



Later she told me the tramadol seems to work better than the valium.



Does anyone have advice for Erica? I would love to be able to help her 
and my foster hound--those fosters never leave your heart, and I have 
warm memories of Oliver's slinging drool high up on my walls when he was 
nervous. We are so happy he found such a terrific home and that his 
humans have kept in touch with us.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets