Older Dog Not Listening

Ok so I have been being driven crazy my our older pit/cur mix. She will be 11 in May and has all of a sudden stopped listening unless she wants to. We thought maybe she was loosing her hearing so we check it out and she hasn't lost it. If you call her she will stand there and look at you and may come over if she feels like it. She has started going to the bathroom in the house. If you tell her to sit she just looks at you and then walks away or does whatever. You have to tell 2 and 3 times to get her to do anything. She has started darting out the door which she was never aloud to do and still isnt but seems to think she can do her own thing. An example of what I mean is this:

Last night I took Morgan and Chance out before bed and I put them on their leashes and the second that I opened the door Morgan tried to run out. I stop her and backed her up and made her sit. We get outside and after she does her business she takes it upon herself to start heading back to the apartment completely ignoring me. (And when I say ignore she looked back when I called her but kept going till I raised my voice.)

If I remember correctly, which I may be off, but this whole thing started right around the time that I got pregnant. Could that be causing it??? And the other thing that I have noticed is she will listen better to my husband now and it used to be the other way around.

Perhaps she's giving you a taste of what's to come when you've got a kid around the house. They suffer with all those behaviours as well throughout different stages of their lives. LOL

When my friend became pregnant her dog became more clingy to her so I suppose the opposite effect could be true as well.

LOL! Any tips for dealing with her?

Perhaps go back to basics with her? NILIF (Nothing in life is free) so you are making her work for her treats etc. So she doesn't even get a biscuit before bed without you making her sit/down/come whichever you decide to make her do.

Hmmm thats a thought.....anyone else have any reasons on why she might be acting like this. I'm telling you before this she was an almost angel. LOL

She may be losing her hearing? I wouldn't rule it out.
It might be a good idea to have her checked out by the vet first.

Great minds think alike, i was going to suggest NILIF too

It could be a whole host of different things which are making her behave this way, your pregnancy may be a trigger, dogs can sense these things - have there been any other changes in the home environment recently? have you changed her food?

Whe she goes off and does her own thing and doesnt listen to your commands, rather than chasing her and following her have you tried walking in the opposite direction calling her name to see if she then follows you?

My dog can sometimes be a bit selectively deaf but if I start heading off in the opposite direction he soon comes running to me - I've even been know to start running in the opposite direction calling his name in a fun high pitched tone as it makes him think that he's missing out on something fun, but I can see that running whilst pregnant may not be the best idea

Im not sure if she is loosing her hearing. We have had it looked at by a vet cause I suspected it a while ago (before too much of the behavior started) and she said that there was no loss. We have moved recently, we moved from Connecticut to South Carolina (USA) and that was back in December. We have also recently (after the behavior had started) switched their food because I was trying to help my other dogs stomach. But like I said this was after the behavior started. I do know that she has cataracts and her left eye is the worst. I did have another thread which was talking about her all of a sudden aggression with the other animals in the house. I wonder if all of this is tied together.....She does seem unhappy and irritable and not wanting much attention from us unless she wants something. Its really hard to deal with and I'm not really sure how to even start. We had to get her a cage, which she has never been in before, because I cant trust her in the apartment anymore. She has started going to the bathroom inside, shes been digging at the carpet, getting into the trash (she has always done this its just gotten worse) and because shes gone after the cat. Its like shes completely miserable but we know of nothing going wrong but her eye site (and she has been checked out)

Just a thought, there was a thread here a while back about dogs getting dementia. As she is 11 do you think it could be something like this happening?
Some of the things you describe sound similar to how an elderly human with dementia might act.

Sometimes people can underestimate the effect of moving house on their pets, especially older pets and if Morgan is losing her sight being in an unfamilar house/apartment will have been unsettling for her.

My GSD, Jesse, (who was 12 last year and I lost to cancer) started behaving slightly different in the last 6 months of her life, her hips were giving her trouble and she too was losing her eyesight. Prior to this Jesse was without doubt the boss out of the two dog (my other dog being Murphy my rottie) but she never had to show she was boss he just knew it and also when out on a walk she was rarely hassled by other dogs and I felt she gave out a particular vibe that kept dogs in their place, when Jesse's eyesight and hips started failing (and the tumour that I didnt know about ) Jesse started being more openly assertive with Murphy and other dogs, it was if she was trying to say I know Im old but Im still boss and she had always been what I would call the perfect pet (I had her since she was 4 months old) but she would definitley have selective hearing when it suited her like running off after a dog even when I gave her my recall command, she was also quite fractious with other dogs whereas before she wouldnt give a hoot.

Have you taken Morgan to the vets for a complete all over check?

Is there a big difference in the weather climate between connecticut and south Carolina?

What was the protein level on the food Morgan was originally on and what is the level on the new food? if the level is quite high (over 20% for an older dog) that that could be making her a tad snappy.