Hidden Conditions Can Change Pet Behavior

We all know how you are feeling physically can impact how you respond to the demands of your day. Your sore back might make you snap grumpily at your child if they accidentally bump into you, or you may seclude yourself away. Most often we can verbalize that we don’t feel good and apologize. But, what if you had no voice? How might you communicate your illness or age-related changes? For many of our pets, it manifests as a change in behavior.
Any condition that leads to an increase in pain or discomfort may bring about behavior changes for a cat or dog. Pain leads to irritability, anxiety over handling bringing more pain, and it can culminate in increased aggressiveness. And, if the display of aggression removes the threat, then the bad behavior is reinforced.
Arthritis is common with aging or chronic orthopedic conditions. If your dog or cat’s joints or back hurt, the resulting decrease in mobility can increase house soiling.  If it hurts to get in and out of the litter box or posture outside, then inappropriate urination and defecation can result. It’s not that your cat is trying to get back at you or the dog is mad about being left at home.
With aging for all of us, things change, but some behavior changes in pets can be from organ functional changes or dysfunction. A pet might be affected by the increase of toxic waste products circulating in the blood from kidney or liver disease. An increased frequency of urination or loss of urine control can come from changes in kidney function, the development of a urinary tract infection or bladder stones, or the development of diabetes or other endocrine disease. Changes associated with the digestive tract can lead to a change in frequency of bowel movements – increased may lead to diarrhea while decreased can lead to constipation.
The endocrine system – the equivalent of the code streaming from the computer brain – also has critical impacts on behavior. Too much or too little thyroid hormone, excess steroid production by the adrenal glands or decreases in pancreatic insulin production may first only be noticed as behavior changes.
Behavior and personality changes can also come from medical conditions in the nervous system such as epilepsy, brain tumors, infection, immune and degenerative conditions. As a system, the brain and body are all integrated and changes in the nervous system will have clinical effects that may show as new or unusual behavior. As the brain ages, even in dogs and cats, there can be the development of cognitive dysfunction and senility. The dog that was perfectly house-trained at age eight may get lost in the house and have accidents.
The good news is that many underlying conditions can be treated and the undesirable behavior resolved by working with your veterinarian. For other conditions, management changes can make it tolerable. Sadly, none of us can stop the aging process, but we can keep our pets comfortable, and enjoy them without letting resentment over a new bad behavior build.
Dr. Margot can be reached at parkhillvet.com