Restless dog

Hi, I live in an island where competent vet is "hard to find". My 11-year old male Rottie is restless, he kept on walking around the house for hours already. He looks healthy, but I do not know what is happening. Anybody can suggest anything? Thanks.

Is this a recent occurrence? Has he had a change of diet in the past few days? Has anything else changed?

I think we need a bit more detail.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, this happened about 12-14 hours ago. But during the last 8 hours, he had started to calm down (sit and lie) even though more time is still spent walking around. No diet change during the past few days. Nothing else has changed. The first time this dog is behaving like this, hopefully it will go away within the next 12-24 hours.

Might be worth a visit to the vet if not cos there is obviously something upsetting him.

Is he eating and drinking, weeing and pooping as normal?

Please take your dog to the vet.

From his symptoms and considering he's 11 years old, he could be suffering from cognitive dysfunction (dementia).

However, only a vet can give you a proper diagnosis and prescribe the correct medication.

Thanks All. Yes, he's eating, drinking, weeing and pooping as normal. As I mentioned earlier, we live in an island. There is no dog hospital here, the vet here doesn't even have X-Ray, let alone CT or MRI (like I saw on satellite TV and one of our favourite, the 'Supervet'). Anyway, to get to the nearest dog hospital with X-Ray (still no CT or MRI), I need to take him on a 2-hour flight to the main island of Java. Let's see in the next few days...

Tricky! How is he feeling today?

He's back to normal today, I don't really know what had happened. But I told everyone to be extra careful... you know, I believe dogs have sixth sense. So happy that nothing bad happens.

Good to hear he's back to his old self.

Might be a good idea to keep an eye out for this happening again due to his age. If it is the onset of dementia, you will need to make changes to keep him safe. And also consider how far you want to let him go, seeing as you have very limited access to a vet.

Only you can decide and it's a tough decision. So fingers crossed it's not for many years yet.