Latest / Senior Pet Talk | for dogs + cats / 26. Set Up Your Pet's Home for Success with Dementia
Transcript
- SPT Ep 26 Final: 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 Steffen. Let's get started. Did you know that there is a certain way to set up your home for your aging pet's brain that is going to help them and give them a better quality of life when they're dealing with doggy or kitty dementia? Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Senior Pet Talk. I am Dr. Amanda Steffen. I am an integrative senior dog and cat veterinarian in the Ohio area. And I bring all of that information to pet parents here on the internet. To be able to help you and your senior dog and cat. Today, I want to talk to you about something that I see every day in my in-home practice. And one of the reasons that I love doing in-home medicine is because I not only get to talk to you about what you're noticing with your senior pet in more depth, but I also get to see people's homes and know what we can change. What are these modifications that we can make that set their home up better for them? We know that our senior pets spend 95 to 99% of their life in your home, right? Especially as they get older. So being able to set up that home in a way that really supports them and supports their brain health is going to help them. with that dementia, it's also going to help the symptoms like the anxiety and the stress associated with it and the, you know, house soiling and the other things that we have going on. If we can set them up in a really beneficial way, then hopefully we can help. So I want to start this with a story about Floyd. If you don't know, Floyd is my heart dog and he is the reason that I am right here in front of you today, because He taught me so much about senior pets and really made me realize this was the subset of veterinary medicine that I meant to make an impact in. And he is the reason that I pursued Chinese medicine. He is the reason that I do everything that I do. In learning with Floyd, he had really substantial dementia. He also had a brain tumor. So it was hard for me to know. with his symptoms, what was causing what, which made that very difficult, right? However, regardless of what was causing it, he had these symptoms. He would pace a lot, especially towards the end, he would just get up and pace around and then he would want to get in the couch again and then he would get back down. He would wake up a lot throughout the night and he had increased urination because of his brain tumor and what it was doing to his pituitary gland. So he needed to pee more frequently. So he would wake up two to three times throughout the night and then need to go outside. And he would also get up in the middle of night and wander around and kind of stare, get stuck in corners in the middle of the night. And he would get a little bit more stressed than he typically had previously. He used to sleep in the bed with me, but as he got older and he got a little bit more frail. It wasn't safe for him to do that because I didn't want him to fall out of the bed, right? Our bed was fairly low, but it was still not safe. And he also did not want to be in the bed anymore. So even if we had put our bed on the floor, he did not want that closeness anymore. I think it stressed him out a little bit. That was another change that happened with him. He went from being the dog who was right next to me all the time to a dog who did not really want. lot of close affection shown and was a hard thing for me to work through too. But one of the things that I found that helped him, two things. One is a night light. So we honestly just left our light on in our closet. We have a very small closet. Our primary bedroom is not any bigger than our other bedrooms. So it was easy for us to just leave that light on in the in the closet. And he was able to kind of see and we were still able to sleep. So that was helpful for him. I did notice an improvement in his wandering and things like that. And the other thing that we ended up doing with him was actually decreasing his space, which may seem to some like it was not a kind thing to do. However, what wasn't kind was when I would wake up and he was staring in a corner and couldn't get turned around. And that hurt so bad for me, or he, you know, could slip and be kind of stuck in that corner and not able to get comfortable or come step in the water dish or something like that. So we actually got him like a a makeshift little like playpen area in the bedroom. And we were able to set it up where he could, you know, get up and move around and change his positioning on his bed, but he was not able to completely move around the room and get into these positions that weren't safe for him anymore. So sometimes actually decreasing their space, at least for sleeping, can be beneficial for them and it can help with their stress levels and help Tim be able to sleep a little bit better as well. So that's what I want to talk to you guys about today. The first thing, and if you do not know if your pet has signs of dementia about 30% of pets over the age of 11, dogs and cats do. That goes up to 50% at the age of 15. Episode four of the podcast talks about these symptoms that are associated with cognitive dysfunction. I use a modified version of the dish all, which I use, I say dish all V because I also want to include cats in there and vocalizing. But if you have not listened to that podcast episode, I would recommend going back and listening. To that first, if you need a reboot on the clinical signs and then coming back here. There was a study done in Aged Beagles that found behavioral enrichment. So things like rotating their toys, having ongoing training, having a kennelmate, or having twice weekly walks, they made fewer errors learning new tasks than dogs that did not have that enrichment. One of the things that I love the most that I see. I've seen, I've been targeted by this senior dog classes. And you know how we have puppy classes, right? And we have dog training classes. These are senior dog classes. And there's just so much of old dogs that get to go in and they'll do some tricks and they'll do some rehab and they just get to get out and smell things and like be around other older pets. And it makes me cry. I am not even joking. I watch those videos and I bawl. Cause it's so cute and I would love to be there. my, you talk about, you know, people's version of like puppy yoga. Like you put me in a room full of geriatric dogs and cats, and I will squeal like you have never heard me squeal. They're so cute. And I would just smush them all. I love them so much. So sorry for the cute aggression. They're so perfect. But I love that. I think that should be brought to so many more places, these like senior dog classes. I think that's so important for their brain health. Doing things like maybe you say, okay, my dog doesn't really like toys anymore. Well, do they like treats? Because we can do puzzle toys with treats. I do a lot of lick mats where I put some yogurt in a lick mat or some of their food even and freeze it. And then they can lick on that frozen thing for a period of time and that's a brain activity for them. Can we just put some kibble inside of like a rolled up towel and wrap that up and have them kind of unroll it to get the treats out of it or something? Can we just maybe we especially for cats? I talk about do we just put like found water? So I I recommend having like little bits of tiny water bowls that are placed other places around the house still have their main water bowl, but just have these additional water sources that we change their location once a week or so. Yeah, just like two or three. And change them out, obviously, cats, especially daily. But just being able to have them like go find this water source and then it increases their water intake because we know a lot of senior cats are clinically dehydrated anyways. And then we're they're going to drink more water and also feel like they're hunting. You can do that with food too. There are these cute little mouse feeders for cats that you can like open the toy and you put some kibble in it or some treats in it or something. And then you hide it around the house and they have to kind of bat it around to get the treats out and they dispense one at a time kind of like a Kong toy for dogs. I really enjoy those because it gives them that hunting component. With dogs again, you can, there are They make different levels of actual puzzle toys, but you can kind of make your own at home. It doesn't have to be anything substantial, just different ways to hide treats or to hide if they really like to sniff things. Like my older dog Mabel, who's over here snoring right now with her head in the pillow. She loves to smell. So for her, something that you can do is to just take like a shoebox and go outside and get some dirt or grass or leaves or different smells from different areas and put them in this box. And then she can just sniff around in it. It's really nice for dogs and cats too, who can't walk as far anymore, get around anymore. That's a way to bring the like the outside in. Also if you have the ability to while monitored, open windows that have screens in them. And watch them, just that fresh smell can be really beneficial to their brain health. Another thing that I recommend to people is stroller walks if they have some difficulties walking. Don't think that you, you know, don't care what people say. Just don't care what people are gonna think. Emmet goes in a stroller when we go on walks in the summer because he loves to go on the walks, but he is break spout like he is a French Bulldog. So he can walk probably three or four miles still very easily. However, when it's hot out, he gets overheated and he can't do that as easily. So I take the stroller because he still likes to go. So he walks his half mile, mile, maybe, and then he starts to breathe heavy. And then I pop him in the stroller and he still gets to finish the walk just and smell the smells, just not walk and exercise. So it is not up to other people how you live your life. And especially not for your pets. So don't worry about what other people say about your pets, right? Another thing that I like is to rotate toys. So you don't have to constantly buy new toys, but just do a toy rotation. I do this with my children. I have a basement where we keep some toys. And I'll just like once a month I put all the toys up and I bring new toys out. And it is insane how much they're like, I didn't even remember I had this. And it helps you to not have to buy a lot of new things. So a toy rotation can be really beneficial as well. Continuing training. So those doggy classes, but like continue to teach them new tricks. Molly learned how to lay down and roll over when she was like 15. It is not something where I don't even think she knew how to sit when she came to live with me. She had been at my parents' house for her first like 10 years. or eight years and she spent her last nine inside with me. I don't even think she had been she knew how to sit and things like that, but continue to do those things, scent games, noise work, sniff walks, always love a snifferoo, a sniffari, as people call him sometimes. So just go, you know, you may only go two blocks in 30 minutes, but you're just letting them smell everything they want to smell, right? That can be really beneficial to their mental health. For cats, there are cat puzzle feeders. I have a client who has like four spread around her house and her cats love them. She puts little treats in them and they just go to town. You could also, for cats, get things like a covered fish tank. We want to make sure that the fish cannot be food and the cat cannot fall in the fish tank. But if you want to cover it and have like a cat TV for them, they do make dog and cat TV as well. You know, you don't want to make iPad kids, but still it can be something that can help give them some activity, especially like in the wintertime when there's not a lot of animals outside and they're not able to get out and move around as much. That can be a helpful thing for them. One of the things I really like for cats, if you're able to in your area, is doing the they have these clear bird feeders that suction cup onto windows. And then they have these hammocks that suction cup on the windows. So if you can get a bird feeder, put it on the outside of the window, suction cup it out there, put some bird feed in there. And then you get those little cat hammocks and make sure your cat has stairs to get up to where they're going and that's very secure. And cats love to just sit there and watch the birds and watch the squirrels and watch things come up and Typically or senior cats are not gonna try to like attack them. If they're younger cats, I don't I say sometimes that could be a little cruel to the birds because they can sometimes try to attack and also the cats because they can't get to them. But older cats typically just like to watch. They're not gonna try to attack or anything like that. And it can be really beneficial to their mental health to have some natural TV to watch all the time and some stimulation to be able to see these types of things. I really like this combo of things. If they still like wand toys, you can use wand toys. We all know that a cat's favorite thing on the face of the planet is just a cardboard box. So anytime you get boxes that come in, you can keep those out for a period of time, let your cat play with them. It's just a nice thing to give them. Senior cats also typically like to be able to hide somewhere. So having like covered Cat beds that have those little igloos or those little domes. Sometimes they really like those as well. Anything that really supports their comfort level. I do also recommend physical therapy as a form of cognitive improvement. It's a multifold thing, right? Like, so you're getting some activity in their body, you're helping with their rehab, you're helping with their muscle wasting, you're helping with their core strength, you're helping with all these things. And also then we are helping to teach them new things. We're helping to helping their brain cognition, helping their brain function, helping all of those components of it as well. So I really love PT for patients that are older. Just learn a couple exercises. I gave a couple exercises in one of my other podcast episodes, but just a couple things that you can do that can help them or try to find a Senior pet class near you. Another thing that I really enjoy, and something else I want to talk to you about is routine and predictability. So we're talking about all these little things that we can add in to enrich their home, but I think it's also important to talk about having a typical routine for them does help. So a consistent routine is going to reduce. Cognitive load rather than adding stimulation onto confusion, right? So we don't want to change their entire routine every single day because then they don't really know what to expect. And we do know that our pets, like my dogs, 100% know when they're supposed to get breakfast, when they're supposed to get dinner, and we're supposed to go to bed at night. So It is important for our pets to keep some sort of consistency so that even when their brain is aging and they're starting to get some dementia, they know, okay, I know when the sun goes down or I know when they start to dim the lights at night that we're gonna start slowing down. I know when we take our nighttime walk or our last walk before bed, then we're going to bed after that. Right. So it is helpful for them to have some sort of a a general format of consistency for like breakfast, walks, dinner, what they get as far as like treats or cognitive enrichment, those types of things. So it is important for us to have consistency in their routine, but also allow some variation to happen in that as well, in order to allow them to improve their cognition and improve these things over time. When we take my daughter to school, there is a little doggy daycare that we walk by. And there is this one old dog that's in there a couple days a week. And it's one of those things where you walk by and you see all these hyperdoodles usually bouncing around. And then you just see this one little slow moving little shihtzu mixed thing. And he's just, you know, toddling around in there. And I think it's so good for him because it gives him some variation in his in his day. And it gives him some new smells to smell every day. He gets to see all these other animals every day. So that can be beneficial in the right setting. You know, I do think they do a good job of making sure that he stays safe. There is always risks associated with doggy daycare. So I'm not going to say recommend or don't recommend them, but it is something that you could try, you know, just to give some changes. A thing with consistency, especially for cats, is really not moving the important things in their life. So one, we try not to move furniture around too much with dogs or cats because sometimes as they get older, their eyesight gets a little worse and it can be harder for them to modify to those changes. Cats, especially because they jump on and off furniture a lot of times, want to make sure we're not trying to move those things a lot. Also try to keep like their food and water bowls in the same area if we can consistently keep them there. And also for cats, our litter boxes. So we want to make sure number one, that you have a litter box on every single floor. And that they're easy to access for our cats. But number two, that we try not to move them too frequently. Okay. There's gonna be another episode on just what I think is a good litter box setup for these guys. But today, just know have one on every floor and have them easily accessible and try not to move them around too much. If we do need to change some of these things or we need to change routine, try to do it gradually, try not to do it abruptly. So If we're able to like push things back slowly over a couple weeks, sometimes you just have to move, right? Sometimes you have to make a big move. You got a new job. Things have to change. I had someone in my program who went through a move with her 19-year-old cat and he did so well with it because she had kind of prepped him. She made sure that she was able to field out where they were going to be. She tried to set up the places the same as they had been previously. So doing the best sh that she could there, but she also made sure she was prepared with medications and with supplements and all these other options that she had for him too. So trying to be as prepared as you can for those episodes. I know it's hard when you're moving to move and to do all the things that are associated with it, but let's remember our pets in that scenario as well. Home modifications, I want to talk to you about these things because they can make such a huge impact and it's such minor details. One thing I have had multiple people direct message me now and tell me made an improvement in their pets' life, and I've seen it with my pets too, is just nightlights. Putting nightlights throughout the house, in dark hallways, in the bedrooms, any places that they're going to be wandering around. They can even be motion censored. But anything that helps to light up where they're gonna be. We know that dogs and cats get something called lenticular sclerosis as they get older. It's an aging change to the eye. It can affect their night vision, however. So they can have some difficulty seeing in the dark. So being able to light up that space can be a very simple, easy, cheap hack to improve their quality of life in their home. Baby gates. So We have baby gates on all of our stairs. We also have kids, so that's another factor of it. But anytime we have older pets who could fall, we want to make sure that we have baby gates set up to where we're keeping them safe. So at the top of the stairs, typically if you worry that your pet is going to try and go up the stairs and they may not be able to make it up the stairs on their own at this stage in life, maybe also at the at the bottom of the stairs is another place to have that. Just can tailor it to your pet. Baby gates can be extremely beneficial in preventing any sort of trauma or falls for them. They can also be helpful for cats if we're trying to keep them in certain areas. I had a patient named Bob Tart. She was an older cat and she had not jumped. They had put up a baby gate to keep them out of the kitchen. They had not jumped the baby gate. I did acupuncture on her one time and she started jumping the baby gate again. So I guess be careful what you wish for when it comes to acupuncture 'cause you might get more problems. But good the good kind. Right. So that that is something that can be beneficial and can help these guys to keep them kind of set where they need to be. 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. Another thing is a playpen. I talked about this a little bit with Floyd, but you can get these like big mesh play pens and set them up there for bedtime or even for when you're gone throughout the day. If you're worried about them getting stuck, lost, falling, anything like that while you're gone. It can sometimes be less stressful for them to actually kind of shrink their environment for a set period of time if we are worried about how they are going to handle being out on their own. I do not want them to hurt themselves. It is the most important factor to keep them safe, right? So if that means we kind of shrink where they're at, while you're at work or while you're at the store or while they're sleep while you're sleeping, it is the most beneficial thing for them. Try and keep the house format set up the normal weight that it is all the time, especially as they get into seniorhood. Try not to change the layout of the floor plan of your house as much as possible. And if you do try to do it. a very slow, steady process. I also recommend, even though this isn't specifically for cognition, but I also recommend making sure that there is a pathway in your home that is always covered with a soft flooring or a non-slip flooring. So I don't ever want them to have to walk on hardwoods or on tile surfaces. I want there to always be a pathway they can make without ever having to set foot on hardwoods. And that's because even if they don't act like it, hardwoods make them uncomfortable. And it we don't want them uncomfortable in their home, right? So always make sure you're trying to now have a nice clear pathway, have night lights everywhere. It's gonna look like a landing strip in your home. And that is perfectly okay. It should not be aesthetically pleasing. It should be live in friendly. For cats, we always want to make sure that we have appropriate litter boxes, so low entries to it, appropriate things right on the outside so they're comfortable, making sure there's a high top if we need to, and making sure that there's one on every floor. We do want to try and make sure that their food, water, litter, and a bed are accessible on every single level, especially the one that they're going to be on the most. We always want to make sure there's an option for them. Food. Doesn't have to be if you have a set place that you feed them or time and things like that. But I want them to have water and a litter box and ideally a bed on every floor that they're possibly on. Same for dogs. I want them to have, if you have multiple levels, I want them to have a water bowl on every floor, a nice bed on every floor, comfortable place to be, and have access to those things. A portion of home modifications, I talked about this in another episode, but you could look into like pheromones, especially. Phelan pheromones like plugins and things like that to help with anxiety levels and stress levels associated with dementia. Or if you're going to be moving or having to change things up, you may want to increase the amount of anti-anxiety things you have in the home, like pheromones, diffusers, collars, those types of things for dogs and cats. Just a note about cats. They should always have their blood pressure checked when they go in for vet visits. I had someone comment on a post I made the other day that said, why isn't this standard of care? And it is kind of there are some fantastic people that I know that are working very diligently in the feline veterinary medicine space to make sure that we know that cats are not small dogs and we need cats to have their own protocols and recommendations. Cats can suffer from high blood pressure. Up to 30% of cats, I believe senior cats can have high blood pressure. That number jumps up a lot when we have things like kidney disease or thyroid disease associated with them as well. So it is important to make sure that cats always get a blood pressure check. And the reason that I'm saying that in this episode specifically is because many times, and I say many, and I'm not joking, I see a lot of senior cats who come into me. And they are blind and their pet parent has no idea. Because if you don't change the house very much and you don't move things around and they don't go anywhere, then they still navigate that house like they can see. But what happens in cats is if they get a really high blood pressure, then they can actually detach the part of their eye that helps them see their retina. And they can go blind acutely. Just there's no fixing it. It's very cute. Even if we fix their blood pressure, it is not going to come back. So it is important to make sure anytime your cat goes in for their routine checkups, ask to have a blood pressure check. If they get stressed, let's ask beforehand how we can make sure that gets facilitated at this vet visit. We want to make sure that they are not getting high blood pressure and we are not risking their vision. What I have seen in my in-home business is that environment makes a huge difference. Difference in their health, their mental health, their physical health, and all of these. So I always want to make sure that component does not get looked over. And I do believe that it is not always a conversation had with general practitioner veterinarians because you're not going into the home to see these things that need to be altered and we're not always talking about them. So this is a really important episode for you. Please send it to any other pet parents that you know, because I doubt that they have been talked to about this with their pets, just because it's not something that a lot of veterinarians think about and touch on. And if they're not seeing it right in front of them, like I do in my in-home business, then it's not always going to be something that we think about. So send this to pet parents who need to hear it. Make sure you spread the word. If you appreciated this episode, I would love if you would subscribe and rate the podcast for me. You do not have to do anything else. Just tap a button and help me to get this out to more people. Environment can be a huge, huge impact on our senior pets' lives and their routines and the things that we do to help their brain function. I hope this gave you some insight and I always just want you to pick one thing. I give a lot of options, right? But I want you to just pick one of those things that you can go alter tonight or that you can do tonight and just see what the impact is on that. Try to do it consistently for a couple of weeks and see if it has any improvement. And if you are so inclined, I would love to hear about that. But if not, as long as it helps impact your senior pet, that is all that I can ask for. I really appreciate you taking the time to spend this podcast episode with me and give me your very crucial time. Please give your senior pet a kiss or a hug for me or a nice little pet and know that you're doing a very, very good job with the information that you have at this time. I am proud of you. I love you. 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.