The things we blame on old age

"He's just getting old." It's a kind sentence, said gently, usually by someone who loves the dog. It also delays more treatment than anything else people say about their dogs.

A note before I start: Bettle is five. I haven't been through this, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. This one leans on veterinary research and on conversations with our vet rather than on anything I've lived, and I'll point you at the numbers so you can weigh them yourself.

How much gets missed

Two conditions do most of the damage, and both are dramatically underdiagnosed.

Arthritis. The figure usually quoted is that around one in five dogs over a year old has osteoarthritis. That's now looking like an undercount. In one study, vets screening 500 dogs during routine appointments — dogs who'd come in for something else entirely — found previously undiagnosed arthritis in 38% of them. Nobody had raised it, because the owners had read it as slowing down.

Cognitive dysfunction. The canine equivalent of dementia. Prevalence runs at roughly 19% of dogs aged 11 to 13, rising to something like 45% by 15. The diagnosis rate is under 2%.

Old age isn't a diagnosis. It's what we say when nobody has looked.

Neither of these is a reason to panic about a dog who's genuinely just mellowing. It's a reason to say the thing out loud at the next appointment instead of filing it under inevitable.

What pain actually looks like

The unhelpful thing about dogs is that they mostly don't limp. Limping means one leg hurts more than the other. When both hips or both elbows are sore — which is common — there's nothing to limp with, so the dog just does less.

• Hesitating at stairs, or at jumping into the car or onto the sofa, when they used to do it without thinking
• Taking longer to stand up, especially after a nap or first thing
• Lagging on the second half of a walk they used to finish easily
• Sitting oddly — one leg out to the side, shifting weight
• Licking repeatedly at one joint
• Getting grumpy about being touched, brushed or lifted, in a dog who never minded

The tell is nearly always change rather than any single behavior. A dog who has always disliked stairs is a dog who dislikes stairs. A dog who stopped using them in March is telling you something.

What the brain version looks like

Vets use a six-part framework, DISHAA, and it's a genuinely useful checklist for owners too.

Night-time restlessness is the one people mention last, usually as an aside on the way out of the consulting room. It's often the clearest signal in the list.

How to make the appointment count

Your vet gets twenty minutes with a dog who is standing on a slippery table in a strange room, full of adrenaline, doing their absolute best impression of a healthy animal. You have years of footage.

• Take video. Them getting up from a lie-down. The stairs. The 3am pacing. This is worth more than any description.
• Bring dates, not adjectives. "He stopped jumping onto the bed around March" beats "he's a bit stiff."
• Ask directly about a pain trial. For suspected arthritis, a couple of weeks on appropriate medication is both treatment and diagnosis — if the dog gets visibly younger, you have your answer.
• Go twice a year once they're into their senior years. A lot of this is only visible as a trend.

What helps, regardless

Keeping them lean is the single biggest lever, and it isn't close — every extra pound goes through the same sore joints, and the check takes two minutes. Beyond that: rugs or runners over slippery floors, a ramp instead of a jump, several short walks rather than one long one, and — for the cognitive side — keeping routines and furniture where they are, because a dog who is getting confused does much better in a house that isn't changing. Nose work stays valuable long after the body slows down; it's low-impact and it keeps them engaged.

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None of this is me telling you your dog is ill. Plenty of older dogs are simply older, and content, and fine. It's just that "getting old" is a conclusion, and it's worth making sure somebody checked before you reach it.