“Senior dogs are made for snuggling.” – Anonymous

Over the years, this common question about senior dogs comes up from time to time: “My older dog is no longer able to do all the fun things we used to do together—he seems to sleep a lot. Is he bored? Is he unhappy?” A client recently posed that question, so I decided to ask my Team more about that and here’s their response:

Like humans, as dogs (and cats) age, their ability and desire to stay active diminishes. Again, as with humans, diminished desire does not imply they don’t want outside stimulation, only that their tolerance for being active or away from home decreases. Responsible pet owners know to gauge when it is time to pull back on extra activities. You may find that your older dog who wants nothing more than to sleep all summer will perk up when the weather is cooler, then slow back down again when the weather gets cold. Knowing and respecting your pet’s physical limitations such as arthritis and diminished hearing and vision will keep her happy and feeling safe.

As to the question of boredom, it is not an emotion that you can easily or accurately ascribe to animals. Let’s first look at destructive behavior often attributed to boredom. Destructive actions almost always stem from anxiety of some kind, rather than boredom.

One type of anxiety comes from a lack of physical activity. Like human children, young animals may get anxious when they have pent up energy and will do what they need to do to relieve that anxiety. They don’t realize they are being destructive; dogs just know that chewing something feels good (and expends a lot of energy)!

Another type of anxiety comes from a lack of interaction with other beings—humans or animals. Dogs—and yes, cats!—are social beings. Though their sociability varies from animal to animal, all thrive in a loving, nurturing environment and decline with emotional neglect. One reason that animals choose to incarnate with humans is to learn about emotion—in all forms. That is an article unto itself, but suffice it to say, that lack of emotional stimulation—especially love—creates anxiety and a lack of purpose. Some animals come in with additional, more “advanced” purposes, such as working with the military or police, acting as service dogs, etc., and they can become anxious (appearing “bored”) when thwarted from doing their job for whatever reason.

Getting back to senior dogs, trust that they are not sleeping because they are bored! Animals have VERY active dream lives! They easily go into dream states where their “spirits” leave their bodies and have all kinds of adventures! They typically like to revisit places where they have had a great time with their human companion. They often encounter other animals who are venturing out in their dreams as well as visit with former animal friends who are no longer physical. Like people, our pets also work out disturbing situations they have had through their dreams. (Try to resist waking them from a bad dream as they are processing the information they need to heal at that time.)

Bottom line: When older pets are loved and cared for, they are quite capable of filling in “stimulation” gaps all by themselves.