Let sleeping dogs lie

Kai turned 13 a few days ago. That’s getting pretty old for a dog. His knee is slowly healing, and he’s now walking on it sometimes.

He’s been sleeping a lot, and he’s been sleeping very soundly. Normally the dogs are always half-aware of what’s going on even when napping. So we’ve never in the past needed to actually wake a dog up for anything.

But lately Kai has not always been aware of what’s going on, so he gets startled when he wakes up. Sometimes he starts awake, loudly barking (at nothing). Or if one of us or one of the other dogs touch him and he starts up awake, he will turn and snarl very menacingly for a moment until he fully wakes up and realizes who it is, and then he’s back to normal.

Today John went over to pet him and he startled, and in addition to snarling at John he also started wailing. It was high pitched and loud. He also seemed confused. I didn’t last very long, and soon he was back to normal. We checked him over to see if he reacted in pain to any kind of prodding, but he seemed fine. He’s also eating and pooping fine.

Then a couple hours later, John walked near him (but didn’t even touch him) and again Kai started wailing. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s a very loud, high pitched noise. John thought it sounded like he was in pain; I thought it sounded like fear.

We were both fairly sure it was a cognitive issue and not something obviously physically wrong, but just to be sure, we took him into the 24-hour emergency vet (it being Saturday night). They checked him over and diagnosed him with “night terrors” and also “probable cognitive decline” due to old age.

Night terrors (also called sleep terrors) are like nightmares, but you don’t quickly wake up like you would out of a nightmare. You may seem awake to others, but you’re not actually awake. You don’t actually know what’s going on around you, and you might fight off someone who is trying to comfort you or rouse you. Likewise, a dog may bite someone trying to comfort them or wake them during a night terror.

They gave us an anti-anxiety medicine to use “as needed”, but we are reluctant to medicate him. It doesn’t make any sense to give it to him after he has a night terror because by then he’s fine. And there’s no way to predict when he’s going to have his next one.

I have night terrors myself, and do not medicate for it. So, well. There you go. Life just sucks sometimes.