If you own a pet, especially a dog, you know how it feels to lose this most precious member of your family. Due to their shorter life span, dogs are subject to untimely death more often than humans. While there’s not much you can do about it; you can still prepare yourself for the situation while paying attention to random signs of dog dying.
Most of the dogs hold on to their old instincts of not showing up their pain and agony to others. It makes them feel vulnerable in front of other animals around. So, while you are trying to track the signs your dog is dying, you may have to put some extra effort into the whole task.
Well, if you are feeling puzzled regarding ‘how to know if your dog is dying’, simply refer to the below-mentioned dog symptoms. All or most of these signs go visible as your dog heads toward his end days.
1. Degrading Mental Health
You may not be able to tell much about the mental health of your canine in the first instance. Yet, by paying some close attention, you can catch all those dog symptoms of degrading mental health.
Just like humans, those innocent souls also feel depressed and stressed during their last days. Even though they may not have much idea about their death, they can feel it right in their head in prior.
So, being a pet owner, you can check for the various signs of dog dying mentioned below.
- Your pet seems disinterested in most activities
- Less responsive towards your calls and gestures
- Feeling low and tired all the time
- Significant changes in his sleeping patterns
- Loss of interest in playing, walking and catching up with neighborhood dogs
While random treatments are available around to treat such issues, you can’t do much if your pet is seeing his final days. You can check with the vet for other alternatives and probably help your canine with a few more days or weeks in his/ her life.
2. Loss of Strength and Composure
Your pooch may lose his strength and composure during his/her final days. You won’t find them active and coordinated like before. So, that must give you a possible answer to the question regarding ‘how to know if your dog is dying’.
Besides losing their strength and focus, the canine may experience significant changes in their eyesight and other senses.
The situation may further lead to several other disorders like dehydration, weakness, dizziness, and fatigue. As you witness all these dog symptoms, get in touch with the veterinarian to get an exact idea about the overall situation.
If your pooch is having specific gastronomical issues, the chances are that he is going through dehydration. Yet, if it develops more than one signs of dog dying, the situation needs immediate attention.
3. Loss of Bladder Control
Dogs lose control of their bladder with age. While this cannot be taken as signs of dog dying, it still leads to other issues that hint towards shutting down of their body functions. Yet, you must pay close attention to the gestures and movements of your canine during this period.
If he is still out there, enjoying his time like always, it may not be the end time yet for your beloved pet. That said, you must take your pet to the vet after seeing any dog symptoms in relation to loss of bladder control .
With timely treatment and medical attention, this issue and other health problems related to it can be looked after.
4. Shutting Down of Other Body Functions
Once your pooch is standing at the death door, you may find most of his body functions breaking down. So, besides odd breathing issues, you can witness other significant signs of dog dying at the same time.
It’s not just about the canines but humans also go through the same phenomenon at deathbed. Odd breathing and other random dog symptoms clearly signal towards the end time for the innocent soul.
Still, it may not always be the case, so you have to focus big time on the breathing patterns of your pooch. It may go slow or very fast within moments. Other times, you may find it going normal for a while and then becoming odd again and vice versa. Besides, the canine may find it hard to move air in and out of his nostrils.
So, its always a great idea to contact your vet in all such situations without any further delay . while this points towards signs your dog is dying, it may be something else as well.
Most of the times, this comes over as the last signs of dog dying. Other times, it generally takes the pooch towards severe health complications that end his life.
5. Intense Tiredness
In most of the cases, tiredness looks exactly like other dog symptoms i.e., stress or any other mental health issue. Most of these issues can come along together as some big signs of dog dying. So, you must bring on your best efforts towards your pet and his overall wellbeing.
See and check whether your dog is making random movements like before or any significant changes in that pattern. Dogs rarely move around during their end days, and that’s where, being a pet owner, you have to check on signs my dog is dying.
Your pooch may not indulge in gaming activities and probably feel like lying around most of the time. Even when you want him to go along with you for a walk or a random activity, you may not witness the response he used to give during his best days.
That said, you must not take this lethargy as sure shot signs of dog dying. There could be a chance that your pet has caught some sickness due to bad weather or any other reasons.
However, instant tiredness or tiredness along with other severe health complications may point towards an unfortunate end to affairs to your beloved pooch’s life.
6. Loss of Appetite
All or most of the dogs experience a significant loss of appetite during their end days. You can witness a significant change in their eating patterns or even see them giving up on food totally.
This usually comes from that bad feeling inside that pushes them towards the end times of their lives. Just like humans; even these innocent souls lose their interest in eating or any other habits during the end hours of their lives.
Well, it not necessarily comes over as signs of dog dying and can very well be a random gastrointestinal issue. Other times, dogs lose interest in eating due to a list of health complications within their bodies. They may be going through some stress or even a bad stomach. Regardless of the reason, you must contact your vet to look into the issues without any further delay.
7. Severe Stomach Problems
Although you may not find it as frequent symptoms or signs your dog is dying, it may appear as a critical issue at times. According to various researches and studies, dog do develop a list of stomach problems while reaching towards the end of life.
As you look forward to these dog symptoms regarding stomach issues, you may encounter frequent vomiting, nausea, or even diarrhea.
All or most of these issues can be due to two reasons only. Firstly, as the body is shutting down due to nearing death, the digestion process within dog’s body may not work like earlier. So, issues like vomiting and diarrhea may come more frequently than before..
Secondly, some severe gastrointestinal issues may lead to nausea or other signs of dog dying. Gastrointestinal issues also result in several other diseases that often prove fatal for your pup.
There may be a situation where the dog is witnessing spikes in blood sugar, and these are some big signs your dog with diabetes is dying. Although diabetes in dogs isn’t that common, yet it sometimes leads to severe health complications in your pooch’s body.
Regardless of the situation or health complication, you must contact a professional vet to provide immediate health assistance to your beloved pet. While you do that, pay utmost focus on its diet and water intake on a daily basis.
8. Dog Seeking Owner’s Attention and Love
Although it’s a fact that most of the dogs don’t show their vulnerability towards the end days of their lives. Yet, in some cases, they often shows signs of dog dying while making random gestures and movements to seek their owner’s attention.
Dogs often try to hide their sickness due to their natural instincts. So, being an owner, you really have to put your best efforts and attention while seeing all those dog symptoms. The same point will become null and void if your dog is simply feeling lethargic and tired.
In all those cases, dogs doesn’t have the power or energy to seek any such attention or comfort from anyone. They would simply lie down for hours and days until it’s the last few moments of their lives.
Some canines often try to vanish from the spot to hide all their pain and agony. They do that to avoid all that suffering and sadness in their owner’s eyes. Yet, it largely depends on their affection and relationship with their owner.
9. Loss of Muscle
As your pup enters into his last few days, you can witness severe muscle loss in his body. This , along with other signs of dog dying can help you to get a better idea about his deteriorating health condition.
Yet, loss of muscles could also come along due to malnutrition or other health issues in the dog’s body. Just like humans, even dogs can witness loss of muscles out of a list of health and nutritional deficiencies.
In other cases, dogs loose muscles just like that, and you may not even know the core reason behind the same situation. That being said, constant twitching that leads to severe dehydration or loss of body balance for longer periods may come as signs your dog is dying.
Rush to your vet in case you witness any such loss of muscles or body balance in your pup. Regardless of the reason, timely medical intervention may save his life.
10. Significant Changes in his Gum Color
Rapid changes in the gum color may also come over as significant signs of dog dying. For example, if the gum color shows blue, that certainly means that the blood stream isn’t receiving the required amount of oxygen.
These Dog symptoms may be due to any issues with the lungs or heart and may result in severe health complications like congestive heart failure. Beside heart related issues, diseases like pneumonia may also result in the Gum color to turn blue.
White gums, on the other side may come over due to insufficient blood flow. So, your dog may have received some injuries due to any random internal bleeding or other related issues.
These Dog symptoms may also come due to anemia. So if you are really worried regarding how to know if your dog is dying, you have to scrutinize every such visible symptom.
Bright red gums is another such symptoms in aging dogs and may come overdue to heatstroke. The gums will take bright color in hot and humid temperatures, which can be due to your pup’s incapability to manage his own body temperature.
Even though this is not a serious situation, you must check it with the vet to avoid any serious health complications with your dog.
11. Bad Temper
As your pet is about to reach the end of his life, he will most likely feel irritated and restless. Hence, you may see him losing his temper every now and then.
He may start barking for no reason or behave weirdly even in the most favorable conditions. Most of the time, this is due to the uneasiness felt in his body. So, we can certainly enlist this in those significant signs of dog dying.
The dog fears death, so you may see him getting aggressive for no reason. Usually, these dog symptoms emerge due to random health complications in dogs.
On the contrary, if your canine is energetic enough to come up with some bad temper, it could be just behavioral issues and currently isn’t seeing his end days. Moreover, in case your dog is dying, he is suppose to be more lethargic and restless rather than bad in temper.
12. Drastic Drop in Body Temperature
Dogs witness a drastic drop in body temperatures during their end days. So, you can take that as those significant signs of dog dying. Their body heat deteriorates as they age or face through any random health complication.
So, according to many animal health experts, lower body temperature could come as one of the signs your dog is dying. Yet, there is a catch to the same observation. If you are living around a low temperature zone, chances are that the dog will also show low body temperature most of the times.
Still, its all about timely tracking and monitoring of these Dog symptoms. So, you got to check the drop in the temperature within the dog’s body via customized thermometers for Dogs. In severe cases, you can check-up with your vet to provide immediate medical attention to your pup.
In the meantime, you can maintain the body temperature while bringing heated beds, blankets and hot water bottles in use.
No one else, except you knows better about the health and wellbeing of your pup. So, the point here is to keep monitoring his health for any conclusion on signs of dog dying. The dog may not show all or most of the symptoms mentioned above.
So before reaching to any conclusion with signs your dog is dying, try to analyze any drastic change in his health and body functioning.
How to Comfort your Dog in his End Days ?
It’s natural to feel sad and disappointing while seeing your dog on his end days. Yet, there are few things that you can do to make him feel comfortable in the process. Below, we have put some suggestions that can help you comfort your dog in those struggling times.
Pain Management
There is nothing you can do if your pup has confirmed those signs of dog dying. Still, there is a lot you can do to limit his pain while reaching to the end.
Bring on various accessories and gears to make him feel comfortable with the pain around his body. Choose a location where he can rest without any external disturbance or interference.
There are various dog memory foam beds that can provide some big comfort for your pup in those hard times. As you do that, check closely with your vet during every instance. Without his approval, you may not be able to ensure the best medicines and treatment process to counter your dog’s discomfort.
Now, again, after the dog, only you can track those critical dog symptoms. So, you got to use your best judgment while bringing any medical help or support from the vet in similar regard.
You may not put an end to his sufferings at the end, yet can limit his pain and discomfort to a great extent.
Keep Offering that Love and Care
Dogs count big time on all the love and care that has been showered at him by his owners or any random person around. So, even when has come up with signs of dog dying, you must continue with your love, care, and support towards him.
He may not continue with the usual routines like going for a walk or playing around during his end days. Still, you can always approach him with a hand full of love, care and support at the same time.
It’s understood that you won’t come up with any new thoughts or gestures to make him feel comfortable. That said; keep on with your normal routine while continuing with your usual behavior towards your pooch during that time.
Avoid Including any New Routines
As you continue with your pup’s old activities and routines, putting through any new routine is not advisable, at least when he sees through his end days.
Your dog isn’t in a condition or mood to look forward to any activity anyways. So, bringing a new one will only increase his stress and anxiety in the same regard.
While you do that, avoid bringing any changes to the place or surroundings. This will put unnecessary thoughts in dog’s mind while increasing his discomfort. Keep everything like earlier to support your dog with the same atmosphere he has been treated at his whole life.
Stay Around
As you start witnessing signs of dog dying, try to stay closer with your beloved pup. He may need you around for a while seeing off his time in this world. Besides, you can help your dog in a lot of stuff he may not be able to do on his own.
Most of the Dog symptoms or signs your dog is dying come up real quick. Hence, it’s always recommended to stay around your pup during that time.
Even if you cannot do that yourself, ask someone to do that on your behalf. Yet, be careful about the fact that the does must be familiar with that person in prior. Bringing a stranger around him will only add up to his existing troubles and worries.
Final Word
You cannot do much to save your dog if his body and health have given up on him. Yet, it would help if you did everything possible to comfort him during his end days. Just like humans, even dogs go through unexplainable pain and sadness in their end times. So, bring over that extra care and support in their lives while you still can.
