Thursday, April 14, 2011

DO DOGS GET SAD????

 Do dogs get SAD (seasonal affective disorder)? Our Molly is now 11 years old and has always been very lean. She really never cared about food before. She would eat a bit and walk off and didn't care if one of the other dogs ate it or not. For the last few months she has been eating her way through her food, then cleaning up anything any of the other dogs left. She stands in the kitchen and cries for food and now instead of being our lean girl, she is our "plus sized" model. I was reading about SAD the other day and found one of the symptoms of it is constant eating and wanting to eat....so now I am wondering if dogs get it as well as humans. Someone told me today that they keep track of our rainfall and most years we hit 20 inches (no metric figures for us older ones raised with inches and feet) around the end of our local fair called the PNE in August. This year apparently and according to this person I spoke with, we hit 18 inches the day before yesterday....prior to the torrential rain storm that moved through last night and the snow that fell today (yes, snow in April...sheesh). I guess we must just about be at the 20 inches that we normally have at the end of August. It is no wonder that so many of us, dogs maybe included are suffering from SAD this year. We only had 3 days in March where no rain fell. I hope this stretch of many months with no sunshine ends soon.....meanwhile Molly has gained so much that she no longer fits her collar...I have never heard of a full grown dog outgrowing their collar.....

1 comment:

Betty said...

Maybe she's become diabetic? I think dogs can develop that in old age and eating a lot would be a symptom. I think drinking a lot also.