My Senior Dog Is Missing My Cues

Learn why this can happen with our oldest, most faithful companions.

Despite years of them being your wingman, your best friend who matches your every stride there comes a time where they start to slowly miss some of your communication cues.

There can be a lot of reasons. For some it is a sign of an underlying health issue or of them not feeling well. So if you are seeing this, getting them into the vet for an updated exam right away is a good idea.

For other’s, it may be the fact that most of their senses are starting to decrease. Often when this happens, it is subtle to start. Maybe they didn’t come when you called them that once.

Maybe they missed the sound of you rummaging in the food bag to get their dinner and surprisingly trotted over.

Or maybe they missed the cue that you were about to turn around and collided with you.

With age, comes a natural reduction in their special senses so clues they had to pick up on your mood or your movements and actions like hearing, smell and vision start decreasing.

Oftentimes it happens overtime and owner’s will report to me a moment of frustration where their senior dog was not seeming to move out of the way or understand what was happening which is unlike them. But what if they couldn’t help it?

To help, I often encourage owner’s to try to be more clear with their communications to their seniors. Use hand motions to help overcome loss of hearing. Go slower when moving around seniors and be more deliberate or loud in your communications.