February 12, 2025 • 18 mins
This week, Tony breaks down some of the issues with older dogs and how to provide them with the best quality of life possible while they ride out their sunset years.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundations podcast. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson. Today's episode is all about senior dogs and
the issues that come along with watching your sidekicks start.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
To age out a little bit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
As the owner of a nearly twelve year old lab,
I'm feeling the old dog situation big time.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
One of the worst, if not the worst.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Things about loving and owning dogs is that their lifespan
is just so condensed compared to ours. Aging is generally inevitable,
and while it sucks, there are some things we can
do to keep our grizzled veterans out and about, you know,
kind of doing stuff late into life while actively working
to increase their quality of life while they still keep
doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's all tied together. That's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Jeanne Cattlemant was born in eighteen seventy five. She didn't
shed her mortal coil until she was one hundred and
twenty two years and one hundred and sixty four days
old in Get This nineteen ninety seven. This means that
the year she was born, the world got its very
(01:15):
first vinyl records. For most of you listeners, that's an
analog storage system that is basically a flat disc with
a bunch of grooves on it. One of the things
that makes me feel almost as old as her is
that I have a very vague memory of getting records
with a meal at Hearty's, the fast food chain you
definitely don't see very often these days. Those records were
(01:37):
for a promotion for the original Gremlins movie, where each
one told a part of the story of those little
rascals that you couldn't feed after midnight or drip water
on otherwise real bad shit would happen. Now that I'm
ready to jump in front of a bus, since I
probably only have a few years left before I age out,
let's look at the other end of her life. The
(01:59):
year that she died, nineteen ninety seven, the first DVD.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Was released into the world.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And you know what you could watch on those DVDs
without having to buy a Frisco burger and some fries.
That's right, freakin Gremlins. Bro That would be a good
distraction if you're sitting there petting a senior dog and
trying not to think about the gray muzzle and the
slow movements, maybe a little limp after a nap, of
which there are many naps. It's an unfortunate situation that
(02:27):
we have to watch our dog's age at such an
accelerated speed, genuinely to the tune of about seven times
faster than us, which is where we get dog years from.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You want to know what the oldest living dog was.
Get this.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It was an Australian shepherd named and I am really
not making this up Bluey. The dog was born in
nineteen ten and didn't head to the big sheep herting
fest in the Sky until nineteen thirty nine, which means
he made it about twenty nine and a half years.
Imagine if all dogs could get to three days decades.
They can't and most dogs would be real lucky to
(03:03):
get to about forty percent of that mark. The average
Labrador retriever scratch that, the average black or yellow Labrador
retriever is looking at about twelve years. Chocolate labs don't
have the same shelf life and they generally live to
about ten and a half. For the German short hair
fans out there, the life span of that high drive
(03:24):
breed that is part goofball and part mission focused lunatic
ranges from ten to about fourteen years. Size has a
huge correlation on lifespan in dogs, and so does weight.
A study that came out of the Banfield Pet Hospital
that looked at the median lifespan of several different breeds
of dogs found that, on average, the lifespan of overweight
(03:45):
dogs is two and a half years shorter than healthy
weight dogs. Let's let that sink in for a second.
If you've ever had to put a dog down, you
know what you'd pay for another week or another month,
another year, let alone two and a half years. That's
like us getting another fifteen or twenty years of life.
(04:08):
If you need better evidence to keep your dog in shape,
I don't know where to find it. This is something
that a lot of people with senior dogs struggle with
for a couple of reasons. First off, who doesn't want
to spoil their dog? After a lifetime of what a
dog just gives us, they deserve some treats. No, maybe
it's time to be a little loose with the feedings.
(04:29):
Maybe well no, Unfortunately, the best way to reward an
old dog is to get on the floor with it
and give it some really good belly scratches.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The weight thing with.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Senior dogs only gets worse when you factor in the
reality that they can't go burn off energy quite like
a younger dog can. When we got our younger lab, Sadie,
it blew me away watching her play with our old dog,
even though Luna was only eight at the time. It
was like watching a speedboat drive circles around a large
(05:01):
Not only do older dogs not have the physical ability
to exercise the way younger dogs do, but the recovery
time takes a lot longer too. They are more susceptible
to injuries, meaning a simple walk on a hard surface
can put them in a bad state for a little while.
One of the reasons I like dogs that like water
is because water is a very forgiving medium in which
(05:22):
to exercise. If you go to the gym and watch
someone run on a treadmill versus swim laps in the pool,
this becomes pretty evident pretty quickly. The thing about this
is you can't just give up on your old dog's fitness.
Diet is probably the biggest factor because you can one
hundred percent control that, and you should, but finding ways
(05:44):
for an older dog.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
To move its body is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
My bride is a physical therapist and people often ask
her for advice on injuries or about getting into shape.
She often tells people, and not necessarily older folks, but
definitely them too, that most ocean is lotion. Bodies are
kind of like outboard boat motors in that they need
to be used properly to work best I have a
(06:09):
workout shirt that is embroidered with the saying movement is medicine.
It is, and that applies to us and our furry besties.
I realize I should probably word that differently because you
could have a bestie who is a furry and who
also is definitely not a dog. There is a part
of the messaging about getting into shape and being healthy
(06:30):
that so many people miss. It's not about taking your
shirt off at the beach and not looking like a
cave dwelling sea mammal just crawled from the ocean. It's
about the mental side too. That is a huge component
of being generally happier. And the same rules apply to
our dogs, although they often don't seem to struggle much
(06:50):
in the mental health department, you know, at least not
like we do. But they still need to move their bodies.
They need to exercise, They need to put those joints
and muscles in lis ligaments and whatever else to use
along with their minds. Swimming is a wonderful way to
give this to aging dogs that are all about that
water life, and it's incredibly low impact exercise. But maybe
(07:14):
you have the kind of dog that believes there are
sharks in any body of water bigger than a bathtub.
Or maybe you had a huge lapse in judgment and
decided to set your roots down in central Minnesota, where
for about six months of the year, the water is
either hard as pavement because it's frozen, or at least
cold enough to make your giblets retreat into your chest
cavity when you dip a toe in. Swimming isn't always
(07:36):
an option, but trying to figure out some level of
low impact movement.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Is a necessity.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The value of being off leash somewhere and being free
to sniff around while even covering short distances cannot be overstated.
Dogs need physical exercise and they need mental stimulation. And
if you want your old dog to be happy and
potentially stick around longer, that's a really good way to
do it. Now, there are other concerns with older dogs
(08:15):
as well. If you look at the pet supplement market,
it's as overwhelming as the human supplement market. An issue
that most older dogs and probably all eventually will have
is arthritis. A common route to provide some comfort on
this front is through glucosamine and android in supplements. There
are a pile of them on the market, and they
(08:37):
promise relief to your pooch by simply giving them the
recommended dosage. But how do we know they work? Well,
we kind of don't, but we also kind of do.
Studies on both humans and dogs with traditional supplements have
yielded somewhat underwhelming results, but that's not to say there
isn't some benefit. Those studies also show that some level
(08:58):
of pain mitigation and better point health can.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Happen through those supplements.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
A lot of veterinary professionals look at this sort of
like a very low risk but potentially somewhat rewarding remedy.
This is one of the reasons some countries approve the
use of ivermectin, the anti parasitic drug during COVID despite
it becoming a stupid political football. Ivermectin is an incredibly
safe drug that has been administered millions of times. It
(09:23):
was such a low risk thing for a potential reward
that it was worth it, especially after the patent ran
out and it just became this generic, cheap option that
was wildly available. Glucosamine androit and supplements seem to fit
kind into the same category for dogs, although there are
some potential side effects. The tricky thing about this, especially
if you live in the good old USA or maybe
up in maple syrup and hockey territory, is that we
(09:46):
are far more comfortable with pill form treatments. But you
know what, our dogs didn't have five thousand or ten thousand,
or fifty thousand years ago, a whole lot of canine
pharmacies to roll up to and order up medicine. What
they did was a whole bunch of wild animals to
chase around and eventually catch and eat, And inside those
(10:06):
animals is a lot of bioavailable glucosamine. This is something
that is missing from our modern diets, and a hell
of a lot of advice around our modern diets. Listing
what's in foods is great, but some stuff just doesn't
get absorbed very well into our bodies and therefore doesn't
do us nearly as much good as we think. That
(10:26):
holds true for canines too, there are studies that show
some benefits from oral supplements on this front, but also
the reality that natural sources are generally always better. The
problem with that is we have a hang up with
giving our dogs an actual pigs ear to chew on,
or maybe a chicken foot. I guess I should have
said this earlier before diving into this rabbit hole that
(10:46):
I just went down. But the truth about pain and
dogs is that the average person, say someone who mostly
writes squirrel hunting articles for a living, might not be
qualified to diagnoses aging, labs, maladies, and death. Definitely say
something like while she has arthritis, so it's time to
give her this pain isn't universal. What I mean by
(11:08):
that is that there's acute pain and chronic pain, nerve pain,
visceral pain, joint pain, and probably quite a few others.
If your older dog seems to be exhibiting symptoms of
being in pain, it's time to visit the vet clinic.
While it might just be general aging aches and pains,
there might be a specific reason for the discomfort that
needs to be addressed in a certain way. A professional
(11:31):
opinion here, along with a professional treatment plan, is a
really really good idea. You don't just want to go
to the medicine cabinet and grab a couple of advils
to sandwich between a slice of cheese and feed it
to your dog. That's a bad idea. Now, the physical
stuff matters, but as I alluded to before, so does
(11:52):
the mental stuff with our dogs. Our friend Yannispu tell
us here at Meat Eater likes to talk about how
the membrane between the mind and the body is real thin,
and he's not wrong. A healthy body will lead to
a healthier mind, and a healthier mind can help maintain
a healthier body. With aging dogs, it's easy to just
not challenge them anymore. It's easier to not engage with
(12:15):
them as much or to include them in as many things.
While some of this is just pure logistics on what
an individual dog can be expected to do, some of
this is just kind of us throwing in the towel
for them because we think it's easier and better for them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
One of my daughters as crafty as hell and she
is an absolute dog lover. So recently she discovered a
thing called a snuffle mat. An interesting tidbit about that
is that snuffle matt was old cow's nickname in high school,
so read into that what you will. Basically, what a
snuffle mat is is a fleece blanket type thing with
(12:52):
a whole bunch of flaps on it that you can
hide small treats in. The dog has to root around
with its nose and find them all. And boy, do
retrievers love that game. I would guess many breeds of
dogs do. And my daughter made a snuffle matt for
our dogs, and that's how Luna gets her supplements and
her medications. And if her tail is any indicator, and
(13:12):
it certainly is, and she's a dog, she really seems
to enjoy that homemade snuffle mat. It's more than just
a clever treat delivery system, though. It allows the dogs
to solve a small problem or a series of small problems,
and they love that. It might not seem like much
to us, but it's not about us.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I keep a.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Fair amount of pheasant tails, you know, and feathers and
wings and all that kind of stuff from the fall
hunts in case someone I know picks up a puppy
and needs them, but also for my dogs in the
off season to get a snoot full of the good
stuff during a training session. Now Luna is officially retired
from hunting, which really really sucks. But the old dog's
(13:55):
heart likes the smell of pheasants the way I used
to like the smell of jim beam and poor decisions.
While training is generally thought of as a way to
teach a dog how to behave, it's also something that
good working dogs just absolutely love. They need a job
and they need some praise. And while it might not
be the same thing as hunting the cattails all day
(14:16):
for a limit of wild roosters, getting to course through
the knee high grass at the park to find something
that smells like heaven and feathered form is something I
have to assume is good for my old dog and
would probably be good for all old sporting dogs. This
is a quality of life issue that is probably more
important than we could really imagine, until at least when
(14:39):
we hit a certain point in our own lives where
we realize that we are that old dog in the
scent of a rooster might be enough to brighten our days,
just like a little metaphorical scritch behind the ears would.
There is one last point I would like to touch
on here when it comes to living with a senior
dog safety. I don't know how many shotgun blasts I
sent down range with my dog in front of you
(15:00):
over the years while we chased upland birds, or how
many times she was in close proximity to a volley
of non talk shots as the ducks circled in, but
it was a lot. She seems to have some real
hearing loss now and also some selective hearing loss. Not
being able to easily recall a dog is a great
way for them to get into danger somehow, oftentimes around traffic.
(15:23):
But be aware that your old dog might not hear
as well as it used to or see as well
as it used to, So this is important.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But that's also.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Big danger stuff, which is something we focus on because
it's in our nature. There's a reason we obsess over
bears and mountain lions and snakes and the things that
might actually kill us. It's part evolutionary, part curiosity. But
the truth is you're way more likely to meet the
old maker because you choked on a gummy nerd cluster
than you are to fight heroically to the death with
an apex predator out in the wild. At least I am,
(15:56):
and I actually spend a fair amount of time where
some of those predators live. Simple things like falling down
the stairs when their back legs start to get weak
can lead to cascading health issues, just like with aging
humans who don't have the grip strength or the core
strength to arrest a fall. And it's never the fall
outright that gets them. It's the broken hip from the fall,
(16:17):
and the surgery that takes a toll on gramma, and
then the inflammation in the weekend immune system, and you
get it. Our older dogs can follow a similar path,
where a seemingly innocuous injury or misstep can spiral into
something bigger down the road. Now, our house is a
normal split level, so our entryway is more suited for
gnome traffic than full sized humans. And for some reason,
(16:39):
my daughters always leave their shoes right out in the
one spot where not only do all of us have
to walk, but my dogs have to pass through on
their way outside to the yard. Watching Luna go downstairs
isn't much fun these days, and seeing her have to
try to navigate a small obstacle course which is often
wet in the winter, makes me want to be a
bad parent to my daughters sometimes, But they are young
(17:02):
and don't think about the struggles of their old dog
the same way I do, and I can't just make
them sit in a snowbank all night long to think
about it. On that note, please don't call child Protective
Services on me. I assure you my children are both
loved and spoiled plenty, and our old dog is just
chugging along trying to live her best life with as
much help as we can give her. It's not easy,
(17:23):
but it is inevitable, and after all that a dog
gives us throughout its life, the least we can do
is try to make their sunset years the best we
possibly can. So that's it for this week. Make sure
you come back in two weeks because I'm going to
talk about the ways in which we can all be
better dog trainers, even if we don't think of ourselves
as actual dog trainers. All right, this has been The
(17:47):
Houndation's podcast. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. As always, thank
you so much for listening and just showing up for
support at our meat Eater experiences, at our live tour,
at so many of the things we do. You guys
just show up and it is so awesome. You also
go on over to the mediator dot com and you
(18:08):
you know, you watch our films, you listen to our
other podcasts. Without that, we would be nothing, so thank you.
If you're looking for something truly cool to watch, go
to the mediator dot com and check out the film
that Clay just dropped on a crazy mountain goat hunt
up in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Super cool.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
While you're there, check out some articles, check out some recipes, whatever,
it's all at the mediator dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Thank you,
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundations podcast. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson. Today's episode is all about senior dogs and
the issues that come along with watching your sidekicks start.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
To age out a little bit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
As the owner of a nearly twelve year old lab,
I'm feeling the old dog situation big time.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
One of the worst, if not the worst.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Things about loving and owning dogs is that their lifespan
is just so condensed compared to ours. Aging is generally inevitable,
and while it sucks, there are some things we can
do to keep our grizzled veterans out and about, you know,
kind of doing stuff late into life while actively working
to increase their quality of life while they still keep
doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's all tied together. That's what this episode is all about.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Jeanne Cattlemant was born in eighteen seventy five. She didn't
shed her mortal coil until she was one hundred and
twenty two years and one hundred and sixty four days
old in Get This nineteen ninety seven. This means that
the year she was born, the world got its very
(01:15):
first vinyl records. For most of you listeners, that's an
analog storage system that is basically a flat disc with
a bunch of grooves on it. One of the things
that makes me feel almost as old as her is
that I have a very vague memory of getting records
with a meal at Hearty's, the fast food chain you
definitely don't see very often these days. Those records were
(01:37):
for a promotion for the original Gremlins movie, where each
one told a part of the story of those little
rascals that you couldn't feed after midnight or drip water
on otherwise real bad shit would happen. Now that I'm
ready to jump in front of a bus, since I
probably only have a few years left before I age out,
let's look at the other end of her life. The
(01:59):
year that she died, nineteen ninety seven, the first DVD.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Was released into the world.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And you know what you could watch on those DVDs
without having to buy a Frisco burger and some fries.
That's right, freakin Gremlins. Bro That would be a good
distraction if you're sitting there petting a senior dog and
trying not to think about the gray muzzle and the
slow movements, maybe a little limp after a nap, of
which there are many naps. It's an unfortunate situation that
(02:27):
we have to watch our dog's age at such an
accelerated speed, genuinely to the tune of about seven times
faster than us, which is where we get dog years from.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You want to know what the oldest living dog was.
Get this.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It was an Australian shepherd named and I am really
not making this up Bluey. The dog was born in
nineteen ten and didn't head to the big sheep herting
fest in the Sky until nineteen thirty nine, which means
he made it about twenty nine and a half years.
Imagine if all dogs could get to three days decades.
They can't and most dogs would be real lucky to
(03:03):
get to about forty percent of that mark. The average
Labrador retriever scratch that, the average black or yellow Labrador
retriever is looking at about twelve years. Chocolate labs don't
have the same shelf life and they generally live to
about ten and a half. For the German short hair
fans out there, the life span of that high drive
(03:24):
breed that is part goofball and part mission focused lunatic
ranges from ten to about fourteen years. Size has a
huge correlation on lifespan in dogs, and so does weight.
A study that came out of the Banfield Pet Hospital
that looked at the median lifespan of several different breeds
of dogs found that, on average, the lifespan of overweight
(03:45):
dogs is two and a half years shorter than healthy
weight dogs. Let's let that sink in for a second.
If you've ever had to put a dog down, you
know what you'd pay for another week or another month,
another year, let alone two and a half years. That's
like us getting another fifteen or twenty years of life.
(04:08):
If you need better evidence to keep your dog in shape,
I don't know where to find it. This is something
that a lot of people with senior dogs struggle with
for a couple of reasons. First off, who doesn't want
to spoil their dog? After a lifetime of what a
dog just gives us, they deserve some treats. No, maybe
it's time to be a little loose with the feedings.
(04:29):
Maybe well no, Unfortunately, the best way to reward an
old dog is to get on the floor with it
and give it some really good belly scratches.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
The weight thing with.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Senior dogs only gets worse when you factor in the
reality that they can't go burn off energy quite like
a younger dog can. When we got our younger lab, Sadie,
it blew me away watching her play with our old dog,
even though Luna was only eight at the time. It
was like watching a speedboat drive circles around a large
(05:01):
Not only do older dogs not have the physical ability
to exercise the way younger dogs do, but the recovery
time takes a lot longer too. They are more susceptible
to injuries, meaning a simple walk on a hard surface
can put them in a bad state for a little while.
One of the reasons I like dogs that like water
is because water is a very forgiving medium in which
(05:22):
to exercise. If you go to the gym and watch
someone run on a treadmill versus swim laps in the pool,
this becomes pretty evident pretty quickly. The thing about this
is you can't just give up on your old dog's fitness.
Diet is probably the biggest factor because you can one
hundred percent control that, and you should, but finding ways
(05:44):
for an older dog.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
To move its body is huge.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
My bride is a physical therapist and people often ask
her for advice on injuries or about getting into shape.
She often tells people, and not necessarily older folks, but
definitely them too, that most ocean is lotion. Bodies are
kind of like outboard boat motors in that they need
to be used properly to work best I have a
(06:09):
workout shirt that is embroidered with the saying movement is medicine.
It is, and that applies to us and our furry besties.
I realize I should probably word that differently because you
could have a bestie who is a furry and who
also is definitely not a dog. There is a part
of the messaging about getting into shape and being healthy
(06:30):
that so many people miss. It's not about taking your
shirt off at the beach and not looking like a
cave dwelling sea mammal just crawled from the ocean. It's
about the mental side too. That is a huge component
of being generally happier. And the same rules apply to
our dogs, although they often don't seem to struggle much
(06:50):
in the mental health department, you know, at least not
like we do. But they still need to move their bodies.
They need to exercise, They need to put those joints
and muscles in lis ligaments and whatever else to use
along with their minds. Swimming is a wonderful way to
give this to aging dogs that are all about that
water life, and it's incredibly low impact exercise. But maybe
(07:14):
you have the kind of dog that believes there are
sharks in any body of water bigger than a bathtub.
Or maybe you had a huge lapse in judgment and
decided to set your roots down in central Minnesota, where
for about six months of the year, the water is
either hard as pavement because it's frozen, or at least
cold enough to make your giblets retreat into your chest
cavity when you dip a toe in. Swimming isn't always
(07:36):
an option, but trying to figure out some level of
low impact movement.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Is a necessity.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
The value of being off leash somewhere and being free
to sniff around while even covering short distances cannot be overstated.
Dogs need physical exercise and they need mental stimulation. And
if you want your old dog to be happy and
potentially stick around longer, that's a really good way to
do it. Now, there are other concerns with older dogs
(08:15):
as well. If you look at the pet supplement market,
it's as overwhelming as the human supplement market. An issue
that most older dogs and probably all eventually will have
is arthritis. A common route to provide some comfort on
this front is through glucosamine and android in supplements. There
are a pile of them on the market, and they
(08:37):
promise relief to your pooch by simply giving them the
recommended dosage. But how do we know they work? Well,
we kind of don't, but we also kind of do.
Studies on both humans and dogs with traditional supplements have
yielded somewhat underwhelming results, but that's not to say there
isn't some benefit. Those studies also show that some level
(08:58):
of pain mitigation and better point health can.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Happen through those supplements.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
A lot of veterinary professionals look at this sort of
like a very low risk but potentially somewhat rewarding remedy.
This is one of the reasons some countries approve the
use of ivermectin, the anti parasitic drug during COVID despite
it becoming a stupid political football. Ivermectin is an incredibly
safe drug that has been administered millions of times. It
(09:23):
was such a low risk thing for a potential reward
that it was worth it, especially after the patent ran
out and it just became this generic, cheap option that
was wildly available. Glucosamine androit and supplements seem to fit
kind into the same category for dogs, although there are
some potential side effects. The tricky thing about this, especially
if you live in the good old USA or maybe
up in maple syrup and hockey territory, is that we
(09:46):
are far more comfortable with pill form treatments. But you
know what, our dogs didn't have five thousand or ten thousand,
or fifty thousand years ago, a whole lot of canine
pharmacies to roll up to and order up medicine. What
they did was a whole bunch of wild animals to
chase around and eventually catch and eat, And inside those
(10:06):
animals is a lot of bioavailable glucosamine. This is something
that is missing from our modern diets, and a hell
of a lot of advice around our modern diets. Listing
what's in foods is great, but some stuff just doesn't
get absorbed very well into our bodies and therefore doesn't
do us nearly as much good as we think. That
(10:26):
holds true for canines too, there are studies that show
some benefits from oral supplements on this front, but also
the reality that natural sources are generally always better. The
problem with that is we have a hang up with
giving our dogs an actual pigs ear to chew on,
or maybe a chicken foot. I guess I should have
said this earlier before diving into this rabbit hole that
(10:46):
I just went down. But the truth about pain and
dogs is that the average person, say someone who mostly
writes squirrel hunting articles for a living, might not be
qualified to diagnoses aging, labs, maladies, and death. Definitely say
something like while she has arthritis, so it's time to
give her this pain isn't universal. What I mean by
(11:08):
that is that there's acute pain and chronic pain, nerve pain,
visceral pain, joint pain, and probably quite a few others.
If your older dog seems to be exhibiting symptoms of
being in pain, it's time to visit the vet clinic.
While it might just be general aging aches and pains,
there might be a specific reason for the discomfort that
needs to be addressed in a certain way. A professional
(11:31):
opinion here, along with a professional treatment plan, is a
really really good idea. You don't just want to go
to the medicine cabinet and grab a couple of advils
to sandwich between a slice of cheese and feed it
to your dog. That's a bad idea. Now, the physical
stuff matters, but as I alluded to before, so does
(11:52):
the mental stuff with our dogs. Our friend Yannispu tell
us here at Meat Eater likes to talk about how
the membrane between the mind and the body is real thin,
and he's not wrong. A healthy body will lead to
a healthier mind, and a healthier mind can help maintain
a healthier body. With aging dogs, it's easy to just
not challenge them anymore. It's easier to not engage with
(12:15):
them as much or to include them in as many things.
While some of this is just pure logistics on what
an individual dog can be expected to do, some of
this is just kind of us throwing in the towel
for them because we think it's easier and better for them.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
One of my daughters as crafty as hell and she
is an absolute dog lover. So recently she discovered a
thing called a snuffle mat. An interesting tidbit about that
is that snuffle matt was old cow's nickname in high school,
so read into that what you will. Basically, what a
snuffle mat is is a fleece blanket type thing with
(12:52):
a whole bunch of flaps on it that you can
hide small treats in. The dog has to root around
with its nose and find them all. And boy, do
retrievers love that game. I would guess many breeds of
dogs do. And my daughter made a snuffle matt for
our dogs, and that's how Luna gets her supplements and
her medications. And if her tail is any indicator, and
(13:12):
it certainly is, and she's a dog, she really seems
to enjoy that homemade snuffle mat. It's more than just
a clever treat delivery system, though. It allows the dogs
to solve a small problem or a series of small problems,
and they love that. It might not seem like much
to us, but it's not about us.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I keep a.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Fair amount of pheasant tails, you know, and feathers and
wings and all that kind of stuff from the fall
hunts in case someone I know picks up a puppy
and needs them, but also for my dogs in the
off season to get a snoot full of the good
stuff during a training session. Now Luna is officially retired
from hunting, which really really sucks. But the old dog's
(13:55):
heart likes the smell of pheasants the way I used
to like the smell of jim beam and poor decisions.
While training is generally thought of as a way to
teach a dog how to behave, it's also something that
good working dogs just absolutely love. They need a job
and they need some praise. And while it might not
be the same thing as hunting the cattails all day
(14:16):
for a limit of wild roosters, getting to course through
the knee high grass at the park to find something
that smells like heaven and feathered form is something I
have to assume is good for my old dog and
would probably be good for all old sporting dogs. This
is a quality of life issue that is probably more
important than we could really imagine, until at least when
(14:39):
we hit a certain point in our own lives where
we realize that we are that old dog in the
scent of a rooster might be enough to brighten our days,
just like a little metaphorical scritch behind the ears would.
There is one last point I would like to touch
on here when it comes to living with a senior
dog safety. I don't know how many shotgun blasts I
sent down range with my dog in front of you
(15:00):
over the years while we chased upland birds, or how
many times she was in close proximity to a volley
of non talk shots as the ducks circled in, but
it was a lot. She seems to have some real
hearing loss now and also some selective hearing loss. Not
being able to easily recall a dog is a great
way for them to get into danger somehow, oftentimes around traffic.
(15:23):
But be aware that your old dog might not hear
as well as it used to or see as well
as it used to, So this is important.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But that's also.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Big danger stuff, which is something we focus on because
it's in our nature. There's a reason we obsess over
bears and mountain lions and snakes and the things that
might actually kill us. It's part evolutionary, part curiosity. But
the truth is you're way more likely to meet the
old maker because you choked on a gummy nerd cluster
than you are to fight heroically to the death with
an apex predator out in the wild. At least I am,
(15:56):
and I actually spend a fair amount of time where
some of those predators live. Simple things like falling down
the stairs when their back legs start to get weak
can lead to cascading health issues, just like with aging
humans who don't have the grip strength or the core
strength to arrest a fall. And it's never the fall
outright that gets them. It's the broken hip from the fall,
(16:17):
and the surgery that takes a toll on gramma, and
then the inflammation in the weekend immune system, and you
get it. Our older dogs can follow a similar path,
where a seemingly innocuous injury or misstep can spiral into
something bigger down the road. Now, our house is a
normal split level, so our entryway is more suited for
gnome traffic than full sized humans. And for some reason,
(16:39):
my daughters always leave their shoes right out in the
one spot where not only do all of us have
to walk, but my dogs have to pass through on
their way outside to the yard. Watching Luna go downstairs
isn't much fun these days, and seeing her have to
try to navigate a small obstacle course which is often
wet in the winter, makes me want to be a
bad parent to my daughters sometimes, But they are young
(17:02):
and don't think about the struggles of their old dog
the same way I do, and I can't just make
them sit in a snowbank all night long to think
about it. On that note, please don't call child Protective
Services on me. I assure you my children are both
loved and spoiled plenty, and our old dog is just
chugging along trying to live her best life with as
much help as we can give her. It's not easy,
(17:23):
but it is inevitable, and after all that a dog
gives us throughout its life, the least we can do
is try to make their sunset years the best we
possibly can. So that's it for this week. Make sure
you come back in two weeks because I'm going to
talk about the ways in which we can all be
better dog trainers, even if we don't think of ourselves
as actual dog trainers. All right, this has been The
(17:47):
Houndation's podcast. I'm your host, Tony Peterson. As always, thank
you so much for listening and just showing up for
support at our meat Eater experiences, at our live tour,
at so many of the things we do. You guys
just show up and it is so awesome. You also
go on over to the mediator dot com and you
(18:08):
you know, you watch our films, you listen to our
other podcasts. Without that, we would be nothing, so thank you.
If you're looking for something truly cool to watch, go
to the mediator dot com and check out the film
that Clay just dropped on a crazy mountain goat hunt
up in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Super cool.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
While you're there, check out some articles, check out some recipes, whatever,
it's all at the mediator dot com.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Thank you,
Host
Cal Callaghan
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