Hellobee Boards

My sisters dog started acting less confident when her lost some of his vision.

Is it possible that there's a neighbor with a new dog that he's afraid of? Or maybe a recent wild animal visitor?

Awww. It does sound like maybe something is going on with his vision/hearing. Sometimes those things can deteriorate so slowly that the changes are subtle and then all of a sudden the dog is acting vastly different.

This happened with my old pup and because I was around her every single day I didn't really notice until it was pretty far gone. She started being a lot more skittish and a little confused and she would act out where she previously didn't because she couldn't always see/hear other animals or people approaching her anymore due to her loss of those senses. So she would sometimes snap or snarl if something took her by surprise. Maybe that would explain your dog attacking your mom's dog?

I'd definitely take him to the vet, although the only way we found out the extent of the vision damage was to take our dog to a pet opthamologist (which sounds ridiculous, I know.)

Of course, at his age, he could also be suffering from a bit of dementia.

It's so hard to see pets go downhill. I'm really sorry.

@youboots: The vets gave us tips for helping her adjust to the vision/hearing losses and to help her get around better and be familiar in our apartment again. The one thing that was tough was to prevent anything from startling her - making sure no one approached her too quickly or touched or grabbed her suddenly. Basically she would need to be approached slowly and allowed to sniff hands, etc, before she was touched. It was easier for us because we have no kids yet, and because she was small and relatively inactive, so we could pick her up and carry her where we needed her to go.

Unfortunately we did end up needing to say goodbye to her about 6 months after the vision problems became really bad, but not entirely due to them. She was 13 or 14 (rescue pup so not exactly sure) and had some other health issues as well.

I hope the vet can give you some concrete answers and it's something you can remedy to make everyone comfortable.

I'd head into the vet for blood work. We just lost our dog in February, and she had been starting to act a little strange (including refusing foods) over the previous 6 months. I just thought it was her getting old, but it ended up being something much worse. We had blood work done on a Saturday and she was gone by Monday because we had waited too late. I'd be cautious, especially at his age, and let the vet run some tests. So many things can be handled with medication if it's caught early enough, and strange behavior is a good sign something's up. Lots of good thoughts for Dutch!