Transcript
Introduction
Welcome to the to the Senior Dog Tales podcast! This podcast is about everything related to living with and caring for an aging dog. I’m Leida Visee, a veterinarian in The Netherlands with more than 30 years of experience. For the last 21 years, in my own practice, I’ve mainly focused on dogs, particularly dogs in the second half of their lives: dogs with life experience, so to speak.
With this podcast, I want to share my knowledge and experience to help you make the golden years of your furry friend as happy and healthy as possible. Each episode, we dive into different aspects of aging in dogs — from nutrition and exercise to medical care and dealing with age-related ailments. I hope this podcast will be a source of support and inspiration for you as you and your dog go through this special phase of life together.
This is episode 1: let’s dive in!
When is your dog actually a senior?
How does the comparison of dog years to human years work?
You often hear the rule that one human year equals seven dog years. Although this seems like a useful guideline, it’s not entirely accurate. The actual relationship between dog and human ages is more complex and cannot simply be captured in a fixed ratio. Dogs mature faster than humans during their first year of life, but after that, the aging process in dogs slows down compared to humans.
The size of the dog also plays a role: smaller dogs can generally live longer than larger dogs. There are various tables available online, but roughly speaking, you can say that smaller dogs (under 10 kilos or 25 pounds) are considered seniors from around 9 years old, medium-sized dogs (11-25 kilos, or roughly 25-60 pounds) are considered seniors from 8 years old, large dogs (25-45 kilos, or 60-100 pounds) are called seniors from about 7 years old, and anyt dog larger and heavier than that is considered senior from 6 years old.
But there are also huge differences between individual dogs, just as there are big differences between people in how they age. One person may be using a walker at 65, while another is still lifting weights at the gym at 75.
Much depends on the genetic cardse your dog has been dealt, but also what else has happened in their life. For example, whether there were injuries or surgeries at a young age. Was it a sports dog that demanded a lot from its body, or rather a couch potato?
But also: what preventive care has the dog received throughout its life? How was the nutrition? Has there been a lot of stress? Did the dog live in a city with a lot of air pollution, or more in a rural area with cleaner air and regular relaxation in a green, forested environment?
These are all factors that play a role in how and how quickly your dog ages.
Traditional Chinese medicine, which I work with as an acupuncturist, has a beautiful model for this.
In this model, Chinese medicine assumes that every individual is born with a certain amount of life energy — called Qi. Throughout life, we gradually use up that supply of Qi, and when it’s gone, we die. Very simple.
The genetic package I just talked about can be compared to the amount of Qi that an individual has received, the starting point, the basic supply.
We can do some things to use Qi as efficiently as possible, and even replenish a little bit here and there. That’s where living conditions come in. Good nutrition and good sleep are the first two pillars to replenish basic Qi a bit. A lot of stress, overload, working too much, these are things that consume extra Qi rapidly, both for us and for our dogs.
So, although there’s certainly a general trend to be seen, each senior writes their own timeline.
THE FIRST SIGNS
But what do we actually notice about the dog?
Often one of the very first things we notice is the appearance of gray or white hairs. (unless you have a completely white dog of course, then it’s not noticeable)
We have feelings about those gray hairs. In ourselves, usually, but also in the dog. Gosh, is your dog already 9? And he’s hardly gray, huh? We see that as a compliment. But the other way around can also affect us… When someone makes a comment about your dog along the lines of “must be an oldie, huh?” that can really hit us hard. We might feel a bit sad when we think about the bouncy puppy or energetic adult dog they were so recently. Or we worry about what’s to come. And that’s all completely normal.
I still remember very well when I saw the first gray hairs on the chin of my previous dog Duffy. Duffy was a black Labrador mix, and one day, when he was lying on his back next to me, I suddenly noticed some white hairs on that chin. At first, I really didn’t want to accept it, I thought “nooooo, that’s just the lighting, the sun reflecting on his coat!” even though I knew better. Only when a few gray hairs appeared above his eyes could I really no longer deny it. I just didn’t want to face that he was starting to get older.
Sometimes it suddenly strikes us when looking at photos from a few years ago. Because the differences from day to day can be very small — we see the dog every day after all — it sometimes only becomes noticeable when we see photos from the past. The memories that Facebook or other social media occasionally present to us can sometimes be eye-openers in this regard.
I do want to stress here, though, that the age at which the first gray hairs appear has nothing to do with the life expectancy of the dog. So having the first gray hairs appear at a young age does not mean that dog cannot have a long and healthy life!
CATARACTS
Other things that might be noticeable could be cataracts, for example. This is a process where the lens in the dog’s eye becomes less transparent, becoming a bit whitish. We often see this as a slightly milky blue glow in the dog’s eyes in certain lighting.
This ,by the way, is usually relatively harmless. Although it’s possible that the dog eventually becomes really visually impaired because of it, this usually doesn’t happen, or happens very slowly. It mainly means that smaller details are no longer seen as well, especially in poor lighting conditions. Dogs can usually deal with this very well. Also, things in the distance may be less visible, especially stationary objects. For example, your dog might suddenly be very wary of an unexpected object on the sidewalk during a walk, say a bicycle standing against a lamppost that’s not normally there. Especially in twilight or at night. Once closer, after they’ve been able to investigate and sniff it, the wariness goes away.
Poor vision can play a role in climbing stairs in dark conditions, especially when going down. Good lighting at your stairs can make a big difference. I wrote a blog about this a while back, which you can find on my website caringforyourcanine.com .
SLEEP PATTERNS
What we also see quite often is a changed sleep pattern. As dogs get older, they usually sleep more, and especially more deeply. Sometimes so deeply that they don’t hear us come in the door when we’ve been away, and that can really worry us. They can also lie so still, with long breathing pauses, that we sometimes hold our own breath and wonder “is he still alive?”
Deep sleeping can also be somewhat related to decreased hearing, although certainly not every dog suffers from this. You can imagine that if the world becomes quieter due to less good hearing, it’s like sleeping with earplugs in.
That gradually decreasing hearing ability often has a phase where you can really doubt whether your dog is becoming deaf or not. Because sometimes they really don’t respond at all when you call them, but when the refrigerator or the cookie tin opens, they’re there in a flash!
I often describe this as multitasking that no longer works. Remember the Qi I talked about earlier? There is less Qi available, and if the nose is busy because the dog is concentrating on sniffing, then there’s no Qi left for the ears, and your dog doesn’t hear you. So usually it’s not that your dog is deliberately ignoring you, they really don’t hear you in those kinds of situations. But in the house, while there’s nothing else going on, they can hear that cookie jar or cheese wrapper just fine.
This is, by the way, is something to be mindful of when you let your dog run off-leash outside. It might just be that they really can’t hear you when you call them, or that they can’t determine which direction the sound is coming from. Then it can happen that they suddenly run off at speed in the wrong direction — and you want to keep them safe of course!
WALKS AND TRACKING BEHAVIOR CHANGES
Talking about walks, another thing you might notice is that your walks are getting slower. Where a certain route used to take, say, half an hour, now it suddenly takes forty-five minutes.
We see this very often with older dogs: there’s more sniffing, the pace is slower. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself. Your 89-year-old grandmother doesn’t walk as briskly as when she was 50 either.
But here we come to a point where we need to be alert. Because when is it ‘just’ old age, and when is something else going on?
Many age-related symptoms look quite similar to one another. Maybe you notice that your dog sleeps more, is less enthusiastic about walks, drinks a bit more or has less appetite. These can be normal aging symptoms, but they can also indicate pain or a developing condition.
Pain is a very important problem. It’s something that almost everyone says when we talk about aging: I don’t want my dog to be in pain. That’s number 1 for most people when we talk about quality of life. And rightly so.
And this can be a challenge, because pain often starts very subtly and gradually. So gradually that we often don’t see the difference from day to day. Many people think that a dog will whine, yelp or moan if there’s pain, but that’s almost never the case. Sometimes yes, with extreme pain, but usually only then, when it’s very severe. The beginning, that little twinge of pain here or there, especially due to osteoarthritis, that’s often much harder to notice. We have that too, most of us don’t immediately start moaning or complaining when something hurts a little somewhere. But we can walk to the medicine cabinet and take a painkiller, or arrange a visit to a doctor or therapist. Our dogs are dependent on us for that, and thus also dependent on us to notice that there is pain.
I find this such an important topic that I’m going to dedicate a separate podcast episode to it, so keep an eye out for that!
OVERLAPPING SYMPTOMs
Besides pain, there are more problems that often occur in older dogs, and that can play a role in the things you can see in your dog, such as getting somewhat slower, or a changed appetite.
Now you might think that joint pain, kidney problems or heart conditions each have their own, clear symptoms. But in reality, it’s not that easy. Many conditions have overlapping symptoms, which can make it difficult to figure out exactly what’s going on. I’ll certainly come back to this more extensively in later episodes, today we’re mainly doing an introduction.
Take for example a dog that becomes less active and sleeps more. That can be due to old age, but also due to arthritis. Or due to decreased kidney function. Or a heart or liver problem.
That’s why it’s important to track changes in behavior and health. You know your dog best and can notice subtle changes the quickest. By writing down these observations, you can get a clear picture of how your dog is developing.
This can really make a big difference. Say your dog has been drinking more water in recent weeks. That could be an early indication of kidney problems. By consistently tracking small changes, and then consulting with your veterinarian, you can intervene earlier and help your dog better.
What can you do?
First: keep a simple diary of changes you observe. That can be really simple, for example noting what you see in your phone calendar. You can also make a special diary or notebook for it, which you place in an easily accessible spot where you’ll remember to fill it in. For many people, on or near the kitchen counter works very well.
And you really write down everything you notice. For example: didn’t want to play with the neighbor’s dog today (if your dog normally does). But also: did want to play with the neighbor’s dog — if your dog hasn’t wanted to for a while. If your dog chooses a shorter walk you can note that (or just a longer walk). If there are changes in appetite, and also if you’ve given your dog other things than usual. If you’ve switched food, or if you’ve given a different snack than usual, to name just a few examples. Note it, with the date. These data can be of enormous value alerting you when something’s wrong.
Second: take photos regularly. but also take videos of your dog. Sometimes moving images say much more than a static photo. And apart from this being very useful to discover if something’s wrong, it’s also very nice to have videos of your dog. You know, some time in the future, when your best friend is no longer there, then photos are precious, but video at least as much.
And if we then continue with prevention: I recommend a yearly a check-up at the veterinarian, and when we’re talking about the real oldies I recommend twice a year. A lot can change in six months. Such a check-up should then especially include blood tests.
Some conditions, such as kidney disease, only show clear symptoms when a lot of damage has already occurred. By regularly checking blood values, you can detect problems early and intervene in time.
Such a check-up at the veterinarian, combined with your own observations at home, is the best way to monitor your dog’s health and wellbeing. You see the daily changes, and the veterinarian has the medical knowledge and tools to analyze all that information and convert it into an action plan, if necessary.
THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY: EARLY DETECTION
The best way to manage health problems in senior dogs is early recognition. That means you and your veterinarian work together:
✅ You observe and track changes
✅ The veterinarian performs regular check-ups and blood tests
Through this approach, you can discover and treat many health problems at an early stage, so your dog continues to feel good for as long as possible.
But you know what I think makes life with a senior dog so special? It’s not about sadness over what has changed — it’s about celebrating what is possible and discovering new ways to enjoy life together.
Living with an aging dog offers us the chance to become more patient, more observant, and to appreciate the small moments more. Think about that sunny afternoon when your dog found the perfect spot of sunlight and sighed contentedly — that’s what these years are about. Life with an older dog can be mindfulness in action, if you’re open to it.
You enter a new phase in the relationship with your dog. Your bond with your senior dog can deepen in a beautiful way:
– You learn to understand each other better.
– The connection becomes more subtle, but very often stronger.
– You find pleasure and satisfaction in other kinds of activities together.
– Each day offers opportunities for new forms of connection.
For me, and I hope for you too, these years are not about limitations — they’re about new discoveries. Maybe fetching becomes a game with gentle exercises in a small space. Maybe running becomes an adventure in sniffing. Maybe tug-of-war becomes a moment of relaxing massage. Each day offers opportunities to strengthen your bond in new ways.
That’s what our senior dogs teach us better than anyone or anything else — the richness of living in the moment.
Episode Summary
In this episode, we talked about what it can look like when your dog becomes a senior. We looked at the well-known comparison between dog and human years, and why age alone doesn’t tell everything about how a dog ages. Factors such as genetics, lifestyle, nutrition, and living environment play a huge role in how fast or slow aging occurs.
We also discussed the first signs of aging—like gray hairs, cataracts, and changes in sleep patterns and hearing. And we looked at how changes in behavior and activity don’t always have to be ‘just old age,’ but sometimes indicate pain or an underlying condition.
Most important takeaway? Early recognition of potential issues is key for maintaining quality of life. Every dog writes their own timeline as a senior. You know your dog best, so you are in the best position to pay attention to the small changes and make adjusments where needed.
Thank you for being here today. You can find the transcript of this episode and links to the blogposts I mentioned at www.caringforyourcanine.com/podcast
Thank you for spending some time with me. I hope you got some value out of this episode, and of course I hope you will join me againg for the next episode, when I will be talking about pain in older dogs, how to recognize it and what you can do about it, Until the next time!
Blog about eyesight:
Blog about hearing:
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