Dear Darcie, I have a senior dog who is getting more and more cantankerous in her old age, especially towards small dogs. My dog is 9 1/2 years old, she is part Lab and part Australian Shepherd, and she weighs a little under 80 pounds. Just to answer the obvious questions, she does have some health problems (hip dysplasia, arthritis, incontinence and allergies), for which she takes various medications and supplements. I consider her to be well socialized with other dogs as she has attended doggie day care for over 8 years with absolutely no problems (and still has none). I have noticed her becoming less predictable towards other dogs when we are in our neighborhood. Sometimes it would be fine, but sometimes she would act like she was going to be friendly and then get all growly up close. I admit that now, I seldom allow meet and greets with same sized dogs because of her increasingly unpredictable behavior and when it comes to small dogs, she will sometimes go ballistic and it is everything I can do to restrain her. If I can redirect her to a sit and get her to give me her attention (like, we aren’t moving or going anywhere until she focuses on me or trying to block her view of the distractor), it is okay. But, in the event the dog is unattended by its human, and it tries to come over to investigate us, she becomes unhinged. Those situations seem to be more and more dangerous. I’ve spoken with our vet about it who says this sometimes happens with older dogs, that it will probably worsen as time goes on, and that I will just have to manage her more to prevent any disasters….Anyway, sorry for the long story, but I thought that it might help to give a little background. How do I keep my dog, as well as other dogs, safe? Cynthia
Dear Cynthia,
Let me get this out quick and then ask you some questions about the problem you’ve asked me about. I hate flexi leads. They can not only take off a person’s thumb and they have, make a huge burn and cut across the back of someone’s leg and they have, they teach dogs that they can pull or go off on their own away from their person when they are on leash. The flexi gives a dog mental permission to do as they pleases when they are on leash. A flexi gives a dog “permission” to step away from their person. And your spoken permission or not, mentally she knows it’s possible. I think the flexi gives the dog the wrong message and they can be dangerous to people and other dogs.
That said, the flexi may or may not be part of this problem. I’ll ask you some questions and when you get back to me I’ll do my best to help and then I’ll update this post.
I have a great big question for you. What is her normal diet? Kibble dog food? What brand? When this started had you just opened a new bag of dog food? Also any new treats? Any food at all different since before the first incident?
What supplements is she taking? And why?
Allergic to what? Dogs who eat some kibbles can have allergies to the mold in the food. Mold can cause behavior changes, sometimes drastic ones, and even die from it.
Did a new dog either start at the day care or move into the neighborhood? Has she had eye contact or any contact with it? New person at the day care? Any new treats or food at the day care?
Any divorces, new boyfriend or girlfriend, change of house, friends coming over or stopped coming over, new cat, other pets die? Did you move her bed or wash it? What brand of soap? Stop sleeping in bed with you, or start? Baths? What soap? New bed? Any life changes like those things?
New toys? What are they made of? Brand names would be good here.
What did you do the first time that she treated another dog different than usual? Hold leash tighter? Get nervous? Tense? Yell? Move across the street? Relax and act normal? Drop the leash and let her handle it? Laugh and run the other way?
Has her medication changed recently? Name of meds, please. Has your vet double checked to make sure she is not taking too large or too small of a dose? Doc checked to make sure that her meds aren’t interfering with each other? Has she been shedding more? Why the incontinence? That alone would make anyone feel pissy, no pun intended. Did the incontinence come before or after the behavior change? Have you checked out the drug’s side effects? Drugs can change behavior. Do you have a holistic vet?
Do you know her parents? Was her mom like this in her later years? The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree sometimes.
It’s possible that it’s just because she’s old and feeling it, hurting, and may need to start swimming more and walking less but in my opinion with what you’ve told me, I’d say she wouldn’t be singling out small dogs if that were the case.
Nine and a half shouldn’t be senior years for your mix. If she was in good health and eating a nutritious diet, I’d say she was just past midlife, like we would be in our late fifties or so. Still going great guns. That all can depend on her heritage but generally speaking, your dog is still young, in my opinion. I feed raw food to my dogs and they live a long time so our time clock may be a little different than some.
It sounds like this started fairly quickly, is that right? That’s why I’m wondering if it was a single incident, meds or food that may have caused her change of mind.
Let me know and I’ll do my best to help. I don’t know everything. 
