CBD Oil for Dogs with Dementia – How Cannabis Tincture Can Help
Has your dog finally made it to their senior years? Have you started to notice that your dog is starting to get stuck behind things such as furniture or even worse, has started to do their business inside the house?
While these types of things are more likely than not going to be dismissed and simply considered to be signs of your dog getting older, they can actually be symptoms that are caused by a much more serious condition that is known more commonly as canine cognitive dysfunction, also known as doggie dementia.
If you are concerned that your dog is starting to suffer from some type of cognitive decline because of their age, there is actually some good news that you will be glad to hear. When it does come to your dog’s cognitive activity starting to decline because of their age, there is lots of very consistent research that suggests that incorporating a CBD supplement into their daily routine can help them to reduce any symptoms that may be related to doggie dementia, and can even help to slow down how quickly that it progresses.
What Exactly is Canine Cognitive Dysfunction, or Doggie Dementia?
Canine cognitive dysfunction or CCD, is a condition that dogs get when they start to grow older, causing them to become senile. In fact, this condition is often times referred to as doggie dementia or canine senility. This canine dementia will cause a wide variety of different problems of senility in your dog, and if left untreated, can worsen very quickly.
Unfortunately for your dog, there are many different dog owners and even the veterinarians that your dog goes to that will simply dismiss the early warning signs of the disease as your dog simply ‘getting old’ or having some ‘senior moments’. With that being said, canine cognitive dysfunction is actually a very real and serious disease that can over time, become more and more debilitating for your dog.
Spotting Canine Cognitive Dysfunction: The Signs That Your Dog Has Doggie Dementia
Now you must keep in mind that senility is going to affect every single dog in a different way. While some dogs may just forget which route, they are supposed to follow when out on their daily walk, other dogs may lose their owner when they are around their home, even if they were just with them a few seconds earlier. Other dogs may start to walk in circles, get stuck behind furniture that they would never get stuck behind before, start to bump into different walls around the house, or even start to become much less active and not be as excited to do the things that they would previously get excited to do.
Since there are so many different signs that your dog is starting to get canine cognitive dysfunction, here are some of the more common symptoms that should alarm you something may be wrong:
- Disorientation: One of the more common symptoms of your dog starting to get doggie dementia, you may start to notice that your dog will began to simply look lost, even if they are in areas or places that should be familiar to them, such as your home. You may also notice that they start to stare directly at a wall or even out into random spaces.
- Forgetfulness: Very similar to people, when your dog has dementia, they can potentially start to forget some very familiar aspects of their lives that they should not be forgetting. Some of these can include people, other pets within the home, and even in some advanced cases, that you are their owner.
- Behavioral Changes: Your once friendly, popular dog may start to become much more irritable and can even start to become much more aggressive due to the fact that they are starting to suffer from canine cognitive dysfunction. Another big change in the behavior of your dog can be that they will become much more withdrawn from any kind of social interactions with other animals or people.
- Dysthymia: If your dog has dementia, they will tend to start losing their awareness of their size and start to suffer from a reduced amount of special conception. This means that they can very easily become stuck behind furniture or even in corners.
- Barking: This includes not just persistent barking but growing and whining as well. And what makes it even worse is that it can become especially bad during the night.
- Decreased Activity and Alertness: If your dog has canine cognitive dysfunction, they will tend to be much less alert to the things going on around them that can include smells and even sounds. They may have some problems when it comes time to find their food, not be able to hear the voice of their owners when they are being called or may even just forget to respond when you are calling their name. When your dog does have dementia, they are also going to be much less active as well.
- Soiling the House: One of the more common symptoms of canine cognitive dysfunction is that your dog will begin to urinate and defecate inside the house, even if your dog is already house-trained.
- Repetitive Movements: If you notice that your dog has started to repeatedly bob their head, walk in circles, or shake their leg, this is considered to be one of the more solid signs that they have started to suffer from some type of decline in their cognitive activity.
- Depression and Anxiety: When your dog does have canine cognitive dysfunction, it can leave them feeling and acting very anxious, resulting in them starting to be scared by people, objects, or certain actions that would previously not have bothered them at all.
- Changes to Their Sleep Cycle: If your dog is suffering from CCD, they will start to become much more restless during the night and sleepier during the day time.
- A Reduced Ability to Learn: As the saying goes, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’, that is because that old dog more than likely had CCD. When your dog is suffering from CCD, they will struggle when it comes to learn any type of new trick.
While many of the symptoms that have been mentioned above can be very subtle, especially if your dog is in isolation, many dog owners are too quick to just dismiss them as being sings that their dog is starting to get too old. If you do notice that your dog is starting to show some of the signs and symptoms as outlined above, be sure that your report it to your local veterinarian so that they can do some tests and make sure that everything is ok.
While there is no definitive cure for canine cognitive dysfunction, it is very possible to help your dog manage and even slow down how fast that it progresses when you are able to detect it in the earlier stages. If you miss the signs and symptoms and are unable to catch it however, three is going to be a whole lot less you can do to help your dog.
What are the Causes of Canine Cognitive Dysfunction?
When you think about canine cognitive dysfunction, think about Alzheimer’s disease in humans as the two are very similar. In fact, dogs who are suffering from CCD have even been used in different studies that have been done for the early-onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
If your dog has CCD, they are going to start developing amyloid plaques within their brain, which is the exact same thing that happens to humans who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid plaques are made of beta-amyloid deposits, which are a fragment of the amyloid precursor proteins that they are made from. If your dog has a normal and healthy brain that does not have anything wrong with it, they are going to process all of these compounds which will help to eliminate them all.
In dogs that are affected by CCD (as with humans who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease), their body is simply not going to do this process, which allow the protein deposits to start building up, eventually forming hard plaques that will begin to affect any type of proper communication between their brain’s neurons.
In people who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, they are also going to suffer from what is known as a neurofibrillary tangle, where there will be tangled fibers within their brain cells that have been caused by different abnormal proteins and the collapsing of certain structures within the neurons of the brain. While much less common in dogs, there are some dogs suffering from CCD that will also suffer from these neurofibrillary tangles as well.
As time continues on, both CCD and Alzheimer’s are going to cause neurodegeneration, which is essentially the loss of brain cells. This will eventually lead to all of the symptoms that have been mentioned above.
While CCD does seem to have some kind of genetic ties, it is able to affect any breed of dog, no matter what their size or sex may be. It is definitely more common in dogs that are older and is estimated to affect more than 25% of dogs that are aged between 11-12 years old, and nearly 70% of dogs that are aged between 15-16 years old.
Treating Canine Cognitive Dysfunction
Unfortunately, there is no cure for CCD. However, if you are able to catch it early enough, you can work together with your veterinarian to help slow down how fast that it will progress, as well as help to reduce how severe the symptoms really are. This can be done by using a combination of certain lifestyle changes, medicines, behavioral therapy, and other supplements as well.
One of the absolute best ways to help prevent CCD from progressing to quickly is through your dog’s diet. This is especially true if your dog is on the older side and you can even get special dog food that has been formulated just for dogs who are suffering from CCD. These diets are usually much richer in antioxidants, which will help to reduce how many free radicals are in your dog’s brain. By working together with your veterinarian, you can easily create a very specific diet that has been tailored to your specific dog and will aid in reducing the effects that CCD is having on the quality of their life.
Now for the big question, is CBD going to help my dog who is suffering from doggie dementia?
CBD to Help with Canine Cognitive Dysfunction
Now that you have a very good grasp on how CCD works and how it is able to affect your dog, what can CBD do to help alleviate the symptoms or slow the progression of it?
Over the past several years, CBD has been getting a ton of extra attention from just about everyone, as it has some of the best potential health benefits around and is a completely all-natural remedy that has been proven to have no negative side effects of any kind. Studies have proven that CBD is able to help fight chronic pain, reduce the regularity and intensity of seizures in those with epilepsy, and so much more. There is even research that has come out looking at how CBD is able to help fight and reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Since Alzheimer’s disease and CCD just happen to be very similar in nature, this is extremely exciting news when it comes to your dog and their CCD.
While no actual studies have been using CBD on dogs with CCD, all of the research being done is pointing to CBD being able to help with Alzheimer’s disease in humans, which is very similar to that of canine cognitive dysfunction in dogs. While much more research is still needed on the matter, all of the signs are pointing to the fact that CBD can potentially help your dog if they are suffering from CCD.
