Latest / Senior Pet Talk | for dogs + cats / 16. How to Make Your Home Senior Pet Friendly

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16. How to Make Your Home Senior Pet Friendly · Senior Pet Talk | for dogs + cats

• Amanda Steffen: You are listening to Senior Pet Talk, the show where we combine Western and Chinese medicine to give senior dog and cat parents the knowledge, the clarity, and the confidence to make sure that your pets' senior years are their best years yet. I'm Dr. Amanda Stefan. Let's get started. Hello, senior pet parent, and thank you for being here with me today. I want to talk to you today about something really important in your senior pet's life, and that is their home environment. I am Dr. Amanda Stefan. I run an in-home integrative senior dog and cat clinic. And I get to go into people's homes every single day and see what improvements we can make to better suit their senior pet. So over the past five years, I have been able to learn a lot about what changes we can make that really improve our pet's quality of life. Now, I know a lot of times we think about the expensive supplements, or we think about the expensive dog food and cat food, or we think about all these things that make a difference in our pet's life. And I agree, those things definitely make a difference. However, something that our pets every single day they're going to be in their home. And they're probably spending 95 to 99% of their day inside of that home. So the most important thing, in my opinion, for their quality of life is the thing that takes up the most of their time, which is going to be their home environment. And this can be done. Great. And this can be done not so great. And I want to make sure that your home is set up in a way that potentiates your senior pet's best life. Okay. So we're going to go through a couple of different categories today. And I'm going to give you some ideas. And hopefully you pick up something new here that you can integrate into your home. And at the end of the podcast today, I just ask that you find one thing. that you can do to change in your home and do that. Give it a week or two. And then, you know, you can always add something new in. But just slowly change these things over time and let's see what we can do to improve their quality of life. Okay. So starting out, I want to say thank you so much for everyone that has left a review or a comment on the podcast on any platform that you're listening on, Spotify, YouTube, Apple, whatever it may be. I really appreciate all the feedback. I was sent a message by one of my clients the other day. And he owns a couple veterinary clinics. And he sent me a picture of one of the new managers that he hired. And she was listening to my podcast. She said, like the podcast that I'm listening to right now. And it was my podcast. And that is just one of the most surreal, amazing moments. It absolutely made my day to think of, I don't know this person. And She's so close by and I'm really helping and impacting people. And then even for her to say like she really liked the podcast, it means a lot to me. So ever I I check this more than I like to admit to see if I get new comments or new ratings and reviews. So it would mean so much to me if you would be able to leave a rating or review for me if you feel like you get a lot out of this podcast, if there's anything you want to know more about. I would love if you would leave me a review or rating. Moving on from that, our home. My daughter started school a couple days ago. And of course, with the new school comes new bugs. So we have been fighting with the stomach bug. So I am I am here with you today. I am gonna do my best to help you all, but If I slip up a couple of times or seem a little out of it, I am doing my best, I promise. I really want to get this information out to you. This podcast episode was something that I've been wanting to get done for a couple weeks now. And I know I just really need to get it out to people because I need for you to know these things and help your senior pet. Okay. So we are going to start by talking about. the environment that we have set up for our pets, right? And this is talking about dogs and cats. And I want to make sure that our home situation is set up appropriately. Today, my dogs did not want to participate in hanging out with me. But if you can see down here, I have some orthopedic dog beds. I've had the same orthopedic dog beds for about 10 years. They have warranties on them. And the warranties are wonderful and they hold their shape. They have very good orthopedic foam to them. They one of them has a cooling factor to it. I am getting a couple cuts in them now, but it's been a long time, right? So I've been using like a blanket over them for the time being. But my dogs still really love their orthopedic beds. So that's the type of stuff we're gonna talk about today. I want to talk about something that most households have that really messes up how your senior pets get around. And every house now is just beautiful hardwood floors. And they're beautiful. And they're not helpful at all whatsoever for your senior pet. They're really actually fairly detrimental. To them having confidence and having the ability to get around and feeling comfortable getting around in their own house. So I had a client. Her dog's name was Dudley. Dudley was a chocolate labrador that I did acupuncture on. Dudley had gulp, which is geriatric onset, laryngeal paralysis, and polyneuropathy. Dudley's mom reached out to me about a year into his diagnosis. So we were able to Do a lot and help him. And we got him a really good like six months of life with the interventions that we were able to do. But yeah, I think of Dudley's house when I think about the house that I want for every single senior pet. And it's so funny because when I go into these homes with pet parents, most of the time what happens is they're gonna say, ⁓ I'm so sorry. It looks like a mess. You know, I'm so sorry for everything being scattered everywhere. And I'm gonna be honest with you, when I walk into a home that has rugs everywhere and all these different like setups for their senior dog, I love that so much more than if you had a pristinely clean house. Because your home for your senior pet should look like my home for my toddler, essentially. There should be chaos. It should be a lot of. variation everywhere, right? There should be things that are not aesthetically pleasing and look like they came out of a magazine because we're living in that home and our senior pet is living in that home. We have to make sure those homes are set up appropriately for them. So I want it to be a little ugly and I'm okay with that. And I like that. And that means to me that the most important part has been our pet. So One of the things that Dudley's mom did that I loved the most is Dudley's mom probably had, I don't know, 60 rugs and they were all different shapes and sizes. She had runners, she had all this stuff, and they were all machine washable. I think she got most of them online. And essentially she would just she had this rotation of washing them. So she would just like bring some out, throw them down, make sure Dudley always had a path to go through. And then throw some in the wash and kind of repeat cycle, right? So I really appreciated that she took the time to do this for him. And it was, it made me so happy to see that Dudley, when I got there, he would run up to the door and greet me. And he was excited. And then he would like, you know, show me his house and he would take me into the the kitchen and then into the living room. Like, okay, this is where we're gonna do our session. I'm excited and he gets to lay down on his comfortable flooring. Deadly hated dog beds, so they never were able to get him to lay on like an orthopedic bed, but that was okay because he was comfortable and happy where he was. In Chinese medicine, there is definitely variation in patients that like prefer cold settings, talking about their yin and their yang, and then prefer hot settings, or patients that prefer. hard surfaces or patients that prefer like softer surfaces or more comfy surfaces, that all plays into their Chinese diagnosis. So those are all things that I take into account too when I go into the home setting and ask these questions, right? So all of this stuff is always information. It's always part of the history and part of the complete picture for me. But I want to focus right now on these hardwood floors, these laminate floors, all this flooring. So even if your pet does not slip around on the floor, then we still will notice they're more tense, they're more stressed, they're more hesitant to go onto those hardwood surfaces because they know they don't have as much of an ability to like catch themselves if something were to happen. They're not as confident on those hardwood surfaces. So what you may notice is just that, well, he stopped following me into the kitchen. He really wants to go into the kitchen, I promise you, because the food's in there and he knows that. But he stopped following you into the kitchen because the kitchen is scary and slippery and he doesn't want to do that anymore. So I think it's really important to think about the whole house. And as much as we can, we want to not shrink our pets home. We want to make sure we're still giving them access to the whole home because it's a small space that they live in their whole lives. So being able to still give them access to venture around the whole house is ideal, right? So that being said, you know, things that we are looking for would be, you know, non-slip rugs, runners. There's like interlocking foam mats that you can use. Another hack that I've told people about is you can actually buy yoga mats by like the the yard. So you can buy like 50 yards of yoga mat and you can cut it to fit different areas. So I really like to have a path for our senior pets throughout the whole house. And it doesn't have to mean that you cover all of your floors, but I do want it to have enough, at least where he has like a runner pathway to get to all the areas of the home. Now, if there's a specific area you don't want him to get to. Like the laundry room where he always gets stuck in there, you know, whatever it may be. I understand that. But for the most part, I want to make sure that they have access to everywhere that they need to go. Okay. And they that they would want to go. And I would say yoga mats are a cheaper option too. I always use machine washable rugs because it's easier for me, but sometimes more cost effective is using a yoga mat and being able to clean them with something. And that is perfectly fine. So try to avoid putting like floor wax or polishing on paths. We don't want to do anything that makes it more slick, obviously. And there are different options for their feet too. So using things like a toe grip, I know there's like Dr. Busby's, Dr. McHenry's, there's soft claws, there's oddly different versions of like toe boot toe grips. And then there's like little foot booties and things like that that you can use that help them have some more traction. This is another place where I always tell you if your pet has long, cute little Grinch toes with all that fluff between their toes, make sure we try and keep that fluff trimmed so that they can grip onto surfaces easier as well. I think it's very important for that. We can also make sure we're talking about using ramps or stairs. So ideal scenario for most senior pets is that they're not jumping. on or off things that much because we can potentiate and worsen arthritis. We can slip disks on our back. We can have other things that happen, right? So if they're walking upstairs or walking downstairs, that's fine. But we're talking about the couch. We're talking about the bed. You know, they're gonna want to get on and off those things. And it would be good as early as you can train them to use stairs or to use a ramp to get on and off those things. Something that I've done as well, because sometimes they don't listen when we're trying to teach us an older dog something new. They're just so used to not doing that. So sometimes I will actually take like thick dog beds, the orthopedic beds that I have, and I will kind of stack them and I'll stack them up next to the bed. So that way they're at least it's kind of like a step. Like they're going up on that and then they're getting up on the bed. And sometimes that can be a good option too. It's the same thing with cats too. I don't want them, I mean, cats are always gonna jump, ⁓ and we're not opposed to that, but we do want to give them places to get up and down that don't require a very large jump, right? So we're not talking about I don't want them going from the floor to the counter or having to do that. The biggest concern I have for dogs and cats is actually the down jump as opposed to the up jump. The up jump isn't gonna put as much pressure. The down jump is the one that compresses a lot of the spine and the limbs and things like that. And it can do a lot more damage, in my opinion. So the down jump is what I want them to have some buffer for. Cats that may be like, hey, let's put a a stair or a chair right under the counter so they can jump onto the chair and then onto the floor. And A plus pet parents will actually also put like a little carpet mat or something or like a bed or a towel or something onto that chair if it's slippery so that they don't slip on that. So it's something they can like get traction on and then get down. Right. Another thing for cats is making sure that like cat trees are something they can climb fairly easily, making sure there's places they can still get up onto if they want to safely but comfortably. So Those are all very important things. I also, you know, stair treads are important. So when I first moved into the house that we're in right now, it's a split level home. So we had an upstairs, downstairs, you know, a lot of different levels. And I had my senior dog Floyd at the time. And unfortunately, where we live in Ohio, there just are not a lot of one story homes. So this is the best we could do. But I immediately went online and got some stair treads. So basically these like little pieces of carpet that you put on the stairs so you can be as pretty as you want them to be. And you stick those on there so that they have a way to get some traction as they're going up and down the stairs. It is actually really beneficial for their body to continue to do stairs as long as they can. So I want to make that as easy as possible for them, for them to still feel comfortable and confident enough to do that. Another important factor with stairs is to make sure the bottom of the stairs and the top of the stairs also have some sort of like a carpeting to them. So we don't want them to go down these stairs and then just have the slick surface that they come down onto, right? We want to make sure that they're coming down onto a rug or a yoga mat or something like that. So that it's more comfortable for them. And then also, you know, if they were to slip and fall or something like that, there's at least something at the bottom there. So they're not going to hurt themselves, right? So, really, this is all about making them the most comfortable that we can and making sure we set up our home in the way that's going to help them the most. Right. When we're talking about beds for dogs and cats, there's actually a really cool cat bed that is orthopedic and also like heating and warming. That's that's a really cool thing. I have quite a few clients that have those and really like them. For beds, I want it to be orthopedic beds. So it should be something where. there is this like foam component where they can get into it and it's not super soft because we don't want them to get into it and then like sink down because then they have a hard time getting up and out of that. Right. Dogs and cats, we're looking at this on both angles. So we want it to be orthopedic so that when they get in and out of it, there is just some cushion and some ability to be able to get up and move around if they need to. So I think it's really important to make sure we're doing orthopedic type beddings. And then we want to make sure that the bed is set up in an area of the home where they're comfortable, right? So if your dog is not a dog that wants to be interacted with all the time or they're easily scared or startled or something like that, you don't want to put them in the high traffic areas of the home with this dog bed. You want to make sure they're kind of on the side somewhere or somewhere where they're comfortable. We want to make sure it's not too drafty of an area. Typically not going to put them right next to like a cooling vent or anything like that. If they like heat, you know, you can you can have them close to heat, but we wanna make sure we're not too close to those things and they don't get too warm or anything like that, right? Another thing that I tend to recommend for senior pets is baby gates. And I know you're probably thinking, well, you just said make sure they're able to get around the house. Yes. Sometimes with assistance though. Because we do know our pets get older, they can slip and fall. And then the other thing is that they start to have some vision changes, right? So as their vision changes, sometimes they do have some depth perception issues and some issues when it's like dark, maybe a dark hallway, a dark downstairs or something like that. We had Molly, my old dog, at my in law's house, and I I didn't think about it. She was 16 at the time. And she fell down my in-laws back stairs. It was very traumatic for everyone involved. She was okay. Thankfully, their stairs were carpeted. The bottom was carpeted. She was okay at the bottom of it. But that could have gone a different way. You know, that could have gone a a bad direction for us. So at that point, I always realized, you know, make sure we have we have something, even if we go. of town and we go on vacation or we go to someone else's home. I want to make sure that there's ways that I can I can senior proof their home. And usually people are going to be fine with that. Okay. So I also want to talk about ramps for the car that could be really helpful. This is specifically obviously for dogs, but they do make some really nice ramps that can help them get in and out of the car. It may be helpful instead to use like a harness that attaches around their front and their back end, like the help ⁓ up harness is one. That's really good. And that just gives you some kind of help to be able to grab front end, back end whatever you need to. And they also think have a big strap that you can just put over your shoulder. So you're not putting as much strain on your body when we're trying to do that. Right. Cause that can be really stressful for for us. When we're talking about bedding, another really good point about bedding is to make sure like the sides are able to get into and out of very easily. So my dog Emmet decided to join me. I don't know if you guys can see his little booty here, but he they really like these beds that have like three sides and then an opening in the front. It look kind of looks like a couch almost. And they like that I think because there's some help on all the sides. So they can lean against the side, but then it's easy to get in and out of. Like there's not a a front where they're not going to be able to get out of it, right? I think that can be really important. Another thing is warmth, like I talked about with cat bedding. They often like to have some warmth, but using like a a heating pad on a low setting, as long as your pet likes that, some of our thick coated or double coated pets may not like it. Some of our very high young energy pets may not like that as well. So depending on your pet, they may or may not like that. But I think that can be something that can be really helpful. for them for that that bedding component of things. Other important things to think about when we're talking about bedding would be again making sure that it is on a non-slip surface. So they're not going to get up and like slip off of it or like it's going to slip out from under them. That can be really important. And then making sure that we have beds in multiple locations. So I have six dog beds. We have four levels in our home. So there is at least one orthopedic dog bed on every single floor of our home. And this goes for cat beds too. Cats really some of our senior cats actually like those like igloo like ones that they climb inside of. I have a patient that I see. He is 19 and a half years old. He's amazing. He is like a he's like a main coon mix cat. Monster is his name. And Monster, this is his couch, but still. Up on the couch, she has a heating pad on the bottom. And then they have like made a cave with a second blanket over top, like a heating blanket over top. And one of Monster's favorite places to go, especially when I do his acupuncture, and then he's like settling down. So then I'm gonna do his laser therapy, is to actually go settle down inside of that little cave area that he has. And he really loves it there. So Offering these different options for like hiding places and things like that for them can be extremely helpful as well. I think it's important too to remember that cats typically do want like an elevated bed still. So somewhere they can be up off of a surface can still be really helpful for them. Okay. The next thing I want to talk to you about is basically like the enrichment, their senses, and those types of things. So a lot of this has been about comfort and mobility. And now we're gonna kind of move on to the setup of the house and making sure that it is set up appropriately for what they need, right? So a lot of veterinary behavior guidance on this is basically saying, like, let's not change the furniture that much. So we know that senior dogs and senior cats can become blind or have some vision loss as they get older. If we are constantly moving where the furniture is or moving things, it's gonna be harder for them to feel the layout and know the layout really well. They also can get stressed a lot easier. So it can be more stressful for them if we're starting to change a lot of things as well. So I think it's really important to make sure that we're trying to keep things as status quo as possible. Try to not move a lot of things, try to not have new furniture come in or change a lot of things around. Okay. As much as we can. I know you want to like change up your home. I understand that. Sometimes we have to move. I had a client in my program recently and she has a 19-year-old cat. And she recently had to move to a new state and a new apartment with him. He actually did a really fantastic. We came up with a fantastic plan. She was able to implement everything. He is living his best life in his new apartment. And it's it's really amazing to see the change that can happen if you just have the right people behind you and the right setup and you're ready. I think that's what I like the most about my program. If you're interested in that, always make sure to check out my website, senior petconnection dot com. All right. Have you ever left the vet with more questions than answers? And then you drive home and you go straight on to Google. Yeah, I hear that a lot. And honestly, it's exactly why I created my senior pet virtual consultations. Imagine we have 45 minutes where we go through everything. Your pet's full history, their specific challenges, their daily life, no rushing. We're gonna cover nutrition, integrative options, whole modifications, and quality of life. And I send you a personalized plan after so that nothing slips through the cracks here. But don't just take my word for it. Chelsea called it a senior pup therapy session and said she felt so much better afterwards. Adiba got recommendations her own vet had never thought to suggest, and Denise said that the consult was incredibly informative and helpful, giving her many options to help her dog Loki feel better. This is the conversation that your senior pet deserves. And honestly, The one you deserve too. The link is in the description. I'd love to help you. Back to this, another thing that can be really helpful is nightlights. I had someone reach out to me on social media that said, I want to thank you because all I did was put a nightlight in the bedroom and now he doesn't wake up and wander around the house anymore in the middle of the night. It can be something truly that simple that has that substantial of an impact. Okay. So I don't want you to think any of these things seem minimal. Because it can seem like it's not much, but it makes a huge impact on their quality of life and their life. That pet was waking up in the middle of the night and probably the owner was too. And it was affecting everyone's quality of life and simply putting a nightlight in the bedroom so that when that pet woke up, he was like, ⁓ my gosh, where am I? And then he went, ⁓ yeah, I'm in my room and mom's right there and I'm good. So actually I'm gonna go back to bed. I'm cool. That can be extremely helpful. Putting nightlights in dark hallways, putting night lights. In just, you know, you can have censored night lights that just come on anytime the lights are off. We know that pets get this thing called lenticular nuclear sclerosis as they get older, which is an aging change of the eye, but it does cause some changes about being able to see at night or in dark areas. So it can be really helpful just to simply put some night lights along along the house, right? And it helps us too to not stubbertoe on things in the middle of the night or step on a dog toy or You know, if you're me, kids' toys, things like that. So I really like for for dogs and for cats is to raise their food and water bowls. We also want to make sure the whole food water bowl setup area has, again, like foam or, you know, something underneath of it that's non-slip. We want to make sure they're not able to slip around or anything like that on it. But also like raising the food and water bowls just to kind of their shoulder height. can be really beneficial. Now there is a caveat to this. There are some studies that have questions about whether raising food and water bowls in like larger dogs could lead to a bloat or a GDB. I've looked into those, there's like two studies. They're both fairly old at this point. I've looked into them. I do not feel like and from what I could see, it was not a significant difference in those guys that did elevate versus did not. The studies had a lot of flaws in them. So obviously do what you're comfortable with. Talk to your vet about it. But I do recommend elevating food and water bowls if we have symptoms of arthritis or if we have any signs that we could be having some pain and discomfort because it can help. And that may be, you know, for my dog, I didn't buy a raised feeder. I literally just have a basket flipped upside down and I put her food bowl on top of that. Simple. Just finding something that is not going to slip around. And we have it set up appropriately, right? I think cats too, we don't think about this, but sometimes raising their food and water bowls can be helpful for them as well. I know a lot of times they do like to bend down and and get to those things, but they actually do appreciate cats tend to get arthritis in their shoulders early on and in their lumbosacral junction, so between their hips. And I do wonder if some of that shoulder. arthritis could be related to the fact that they're always hunching over to be able to eat and drink and things like that. So there's no studies that I know of on that, but it is one of my suspicions and one of the things that I I wonder about. So I do recommend also elevating their food bowls at least, you know, water hit or miss on that. Fountains tend to be a little higher for cats. So that can be really helpful as well. I want to make sure that they have everything they need on every single floor that they're going to be on in the house. Okay. So if you have cats, they need a litter box on every single floor. They need a water bowl on every single floor. They don't have to have food bowls on every floor. If we have a set place that they're going to eat and things like that, but I want to make sure we have those things available for them on every single floor. So they don't have to go up and down stairs or up and down flights if they don't need to. Same thing with dogs. I want to make sure there's a dog bed on every floor. I want to make sure that there is a water bowl on every floor. Because I want them to be able to access those things without having to go up and down stairs. Stairs are good for them, yes, but we also don't want them to have to work for things that they should have easy access to. So I think it's really important to make sure that they have access to all of those things as well. When we're talking about cats, one of the really important things that I like to talk about here is litter boxes. And so litter boxes are not always set up for the senior cat, the way that they are made. A lot of them are made in a way that they're high above the ground. They may move, they have a high entry, things like that. We want litter boxes to have a low entry to get into them. If they're gonna have a lid on it, it needs to be very tall so that your cat does not have to scrunch down. And I want them to have a very wide base so that they can turn around without having to tweak their body too much or be uncomfortable, right? So a lot of times. This means that we buy a rubber made container and we cut a front lip out of it and maybe we line it with some tape or like a pool noodle or something like that to be comfortable. And then I want to make sure in front of that litter box is always like a rug or a runner or a yoga mat or something like that. So they're comfortable when they're getting off of that mat. Okay. That's also extremely important. Cats really like vertical spaces. So still giving them the ability to go up and sit in the window, you know, just making sure they have a steady way to get there. One of my favorite things for cats is actually this like they have these little window hammocks that are really nice. And then I like to put like a bird feeder on the other side of that, like a clear bird feeder that you suction onto the outside of the window. So they're able to kind of still watch the birds. They get some pencil enrichment. And they're able to get some sunlight and all the things that cats really love to do. Okay. So that is most of what I wanted to talk to you about today. So I'll recap all of these things. Let's see. We talked about setting up our home appropriately for mobility. So making sure we have lots of non-slip surfaces, orthopedic foam bedding, having raised food and water bowls. We want to make sure that we're also giving them like some heat if they want that. We're lining stairs. We're preventing falls. We are using night lights. We're helping reduce stress by reducing the amount we move things and change things in the home. You know, we're making sure litter boxes have a low entry. We're making sure that they still have access to their entire home. I want them to have access to move around their entire house with comfort and want to because that movement is good for them. We know the more stagnant that we are and that they are, the faster they're going to age. So keeping them up and moving is really important. I want them following you around the house. That's going to be good. Getting them up, you know, every once an hour for a few minutes is really good for their joints to get things moving and circulating and to prevent all that stiffness from building up. So I think this is really important. This topic is something that can be fairly inexpensive, but make a huge difference in your senior pet's life. Okay. I know that you are doing the absolute best that you can. My hope with this is that this gives you a little bit more to be able to do. And if you ever have any questions or concerns, please reach out to me. I love hearing from people. I got a lot of really positive feedback on my socials today from people who had previous virtual consultations with me. It just makes my heart happy to know that I am doing so much good in the senior pet world and I am gonna continue to be here for you. So if I'm gonna be here, you're gonna be here. Tell me what you want hear. So I can I can make that work for you. We are gonna do a couple more broader episodes, and then I really wanna get down nitty-gritty into some of these specific diseases. There's gonna be another episode where I talk about specific medications and things like that. So stay tuned. Ask me anything you want to hear about. Thank you for listening to Senior Pet Talk today. I so appreciate you being here and taking time out of your very busy day to be here with me and learning all that you can to help your senior pet. Have a beautiful day. That's it for today. If this episode helped you, please leave a review or rate this podcast so we can get the word out to more pet parents who need to hear that they are doing a good job. And if you're interested in working more with me, you can find me on social media or at seniorpetconnection.com because we all need to stay connected. Remember that you are doing a great job with the information that you have in this moment. And I am just here to give you more of it. See you next week.