Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really.-Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Can dogs go crazy? Or perhaps develop dementia?

I ask because Sammy has been getting weirder and weirder.

It started a few months back when she refused to be in the house when my niece was here. My niece we see close to every weekend so it's not like Sammy had never met her before. When she went outside she would lay in the middle of the lawn, I should also mention that it was pouring rain (and I mean really bucketing) the first several times she did this. At the time we thought maybe the shrill little girl voices hurt her ears.

Then on Christmas she climbed in to the new play tent we'd bought Fiona and peed in it. I was able to clean it up but that is not the point. I wondered if maybe she was (after 3 years) getting resentful of Fiona.

This week she's insisted on repeatedly getting between me and the bath tub when I was trying to give Fiona a bath, taken up eating poop (yes dogs do this but it's new for her), and started pawing at anything cardboard she can find in an obsessive compulsive way.

I suppose I should call the vet. I'm just worried that they're going to say it's just 'cause she's old and we can't do anything about it. I don't want us to have to decide when to put her down based on how crazy she's become rather than how old and sick she is.

She has always annoyed me. I'm not proud of it but I've been known to tell her, "go away nobody likes you" But really she's just so freaking stupid it frustrates me. I don't actually hate her (as I may have also been known to say). I want Sammy to be her normal mildly annoying self for many more years not on a scary downward slide in to senility. Awww maaaaaan now I'm getting weepy.


Note: I should clarify a bit here. We wouldn't be putting her down just 'cause she's getting nutty. That would make us pretty horid. I meant that I didn't expect her being crazy to be a factor at all. I will be taking her to the vet in any case.