The moment we learned that dogs can get dementia too...
My soul dog, my beloved Coosa, entered my life in 2006. That adorable little fluff ball of Golden fur changed my life forever. She was the greatest friend I’d ever had and the biggest blessing of my life.
She was one of those kind of dogs that was a perfect angel on earth. From a puppy, she was the brightest little ray of sunshine spreading joy wherever her little paws took her. “Good dog” doesn’t quite cut it in describing her. She was an “exceptionally good dog”.
I was lucky to have had 15 glorious years with my Coosa before she crossed the rainbow bridge in that dreaded year of 2021. Losing her tore my heart out. She definitely took a piece of me with her when she left.
Coosa was an exceptionally healthy dog for the majority of her life. Super athletic and robust. By the age of 14 she was still hiking up mountains with my husband and I. Nothing stopped this dog.
Her vet was always amazed at how healthy she was in her senior years. She had great teeth, zero arthritis or joint issues, full mobility, excellent eyesight and hearing and literally no health issues whatsoever.
And then one day out of the blue not long after her 14th birthday, something changed.
The very first sign I noticed was when we were out on a family camping trip in the fall of 2020. Coosa went with us everywhere and she particularly loved our camping trips.
On this bright crisp day I was sitting by the campfire and Coosa was sniffing around in some bushes nearby. As I watched her she suddenly walked straight into a cactus before I could stop her. The most odd part about it was that she was looking right at the cactus when she walked into it so it wasn’t as if she simply didn’t see it.
She was a bonafide Arizona dog so prior to this moment she fully knew to steer clear of cacti.
As I stood gently picking the cactus thorns out of her face I was completely bewildered as to why she had done this very odd thing.
As the weeks passed following the cactus incident more baffling symptoms started surfacing.
She started ignoring us when we would call her name as if she wasn’t hearing us. She started running into things in the house like she didn’t realize she was so close to them. She started panting excessively all the time. Our girl who was normally as cool as Joe Cool and was never fazed by anything suddenly started showing signs of anxiety.
At our visit with her vet, our first questions were if she was suddenly going blind and deaf. She was not. We were then thrown a curveball. Our beloved Coosa was diagnosed with Doggy Dementia.
We had never heard of dementia in dogs and didn’t even know it was a thing for them. Being hit with the news that our baby girl was starting to lose her memory was a hard pill for us to swallow. We went home that day in tears.
My husband and I had watched both of our mothers suffer from dementia, so as their caregivers we were very familiar with the disease and its horrific effects. It was a disease we wouldn’t wish on anyone and to see it now taking over our precious dog was just heartbreaking.
I immediately got to work researching the best ways to go about helping our sweet girl through this difficult transition in her life. We were determined to be with her every step of the way and do our utmost to comfort and protect her as best as we possibly could. She was our world and we would do literally anything for her.
A dear friend who owned a CBD company gave us some pet CBD oil for her which we verified with our vet before using. We found that it definitely helped with the anxiety. (Be sure to check with your own Vet before giving your dog CBD oil to make sure it is right for your dog’s specific needs.) That, along with the medication her vet prescribed, were the only things we could give her to help her internally. I already had her on a really good, healthy, high quality diet her whole life.
As time progressed new symptoms emerged and we found ways to adjust her surroundings to meet the new needs. We watched her like hawks and maneuvered life around her every need, changing our schedules so that we could be constantly there for her.
On one of the few occasions we both collectively had to step out to get groceries and run some errands, leaving her home alone, we came home to find the arm of my favorite antique settee completely torn to shreds. This was a shock we hadn’t been prepared for because Coosa never tore anything up in my house the entire 14 years of her life. As I said previously, she was a perfect angel dog.
I cried many tears over that incident, not because I was sad about the ruined settee; I cried because it was another huge sign that our dog’s beautiful mind was slipping away from us. She didn’t even know what she had done. I just held her tight, loved on her and told her it was okay.
We learned then that at this point in the dementia stages it was better for her safety to set up some boundaries in the home. Our girl who had always been fully free to roam our home inside and out her whole life now needed some safety barriers.
This was our life for the next year. It was a constant learning ground that required continual adjustments as we maneuvered the path that dementia takes as it deteriorates the brain.
The thing that ate at me the most was the fear of the moment when my Coosa, my best friend, would start to forget who I was. I dreaded that day so very very much. But that day fortunately never came.
There were times when I would look into my dog’s eyes and they almost seemed wild, like she was slowly transforming into a wild undomesticated dog and reverting back to her wolf ancestry. Some days she just really didn’t seem like herself at all. The incredible intelligence Coosa had was starting to fade. But even on the darkest days if I looked deep into her eyes, I could still see her love for me in them. I could still see that she had not forgotten me. I could still see my dear friend in there - deep inside.
With everything we did to combat the dementia, we managed to buy our Coosa an extra year with us. We cherished that whole year.
We continued to take her on the adventures she loved. She certainly enjoyed them in the moment even if she forgot about them by the next day.
By the age of 14 1/2 her body was still extremely active and vibrant. It was only her mind that was deteriorating. We still took her on her beloved hiking adventures, just making sure we protected her from running into things on the trail. And we continued to take her to all her favorite places like the lakes and rivers she so loved. She would still jump into the water like a puppy.
Photo: Coosa boating on the lake with us
But then the toll on her mind started taking a toll on her body. Our vibrant girl started slowing down. More new adjustments were now needed.
We bought an off-road wagon and started pulling her around in it on our adventures so she no longer had to walk distances. She loved that wagon!
Gradually our girl was starting to slip away from us - mind first and then body.
The adventures eventually stopped and our days now consisted of calm quiet cozy days at home cuddling our girl and spending every second of quality time with her because we knew time was slipping away now. Precious precious time.
There is a gut wrenching pain that starts choking you up inside when you start seeing the end of your best friend’s life drawing nigh. You tend to spend a lot of time trying to deny it, but you know it’s coming and it kills you inside that you are powerless to stop it.
As our girl’s 15th birthday was coming nearer she began to slip away. We started having to face the most difficult decision of our lives.
We absolutely would not let her suffer but we struggled so much with figuring out how to know for sure when it would be the right time to say goodbye.
As I warred with myself over the decision, a dear friend said to me “When the time is right, you will know. You will look into her eyes and she will tell you.”
I was skeptical about this but then that is exactly what happened. One day I was holding her face in my lap and she looked me straight in the eye and then I just knew without a shadow of a doubt. She was telling me she was ready to go. I never wavered with the decision again after that moment.
We said our goodbyes to our sweet girl in the comfort of our own home where she was surrounded by all that was familiar to her and all that she loved. We refused to have it any other way. Especially because of the dementia, we didn’t want her to have to cross the rainbow bridge in an unfamiliar vet’s office, suffering with anxiety. It took a whole bunch of phone calls and much pleading before we could find a vet willing to come to our home in the rural area we lived but we refused to give up and finally found an incredibly compassionate and kind vet that was willing to drive two hours to come help us say goodbye to our girl.
She passed away in her comfy bed with us holding her paws and telling her how much we loved her and what a beautiful blessing she was in our lives.
Photo: Craig spending a cherished moment with Coosa in her last days with us
My best friend whose mind was gone - eaten away by the cursed dementia - still knew me in that moment. The dementia couldn’t take away our friendship no matter how hard it tried. I believe that is because dogs love on a deeper level than people do. Their loyalty, devotion and friendship spans the gaps of time, the gaps of physical barriers and the gaps of the mind. Their friendship goes all the way down to their very core. To the recesses of their beings that go beyond the reaches of any disease.
The sorrow my husband and I felt that day was more than I can ever express in black letters on this page. Her loss cut us deep.
Our house felt like the light had gone out of it and it was suddenly the most desolate empty place on earth.
The sunshine in our days was snuffed out. We couldn’t function without our Golden girl by our side.
We had to get away and just let ourselves grieve so we rented a secluded cabin up in the mountains and cried there for a full week.
It has now been 3 years since our beautiful girl departed this earth and though our home is again filled with sunshine and the pitter patter of little paws in the form of our new rescue Golden Karis whom we dearly love, the memory of our sweet soul dog Coosa will remain with us forever and her loss still stings like a forever thorn in our hearts.
Something I have learned through this experience with Doggy Dementia is that dogs handle dementia differently than humans. Dogs live in the moment so time doesn’t matter to them and therefore the inability to remember what’s happening from moment to moment doesn’t affect them as negatively as it does humans.
As Coosa lost her mind she never lost her joy in the moment. She may have forgotten where her bed was in the room but she never forgot how to be happy, she never forgot how to love, she never forgot how to live life to the fullest. She was still her happy-go-lucky self all the way up to the very end.
Dogs are truly the purest form of all things good and marvelous - even when they lose their minds.
Blessed are we who have been touched by their unwavering friendship.
- Jenna Miller