Caring for a Senior Pet in Colorado Springs: Our Lifetime Care Guide

There is no single birthday, and the common shorthand that dogs become senior at seven is wrong often enough to matter. AAHA defines senior by proportion of expected lifespan — the last 25% of it — which means size drives the answer in dogs. Small breeds often are not senior until around 12. Large breeds can reach senior status as early as 7 to 8 years, and giant breeds earlier still. Cats are simpler, because feline lifespan varies far less by breed: senior means over 10 years old, and cats aged 7 to 10 are classed as mature adults. Treat these as practical ranges rather than thresholds, and let us individualize it for your pet at the next exam.

AAHA recommends senior pets be examined at least twice a year. We run our full senior panel every 6 months, at the shorter end of that range. The panel is a complete blood count, a biochemistry panel, T4 and free T4, a urinalysis with urine protein:creatinine ratio, and fecal screening. Cats also get Pro-BNP as a cardiac marker plus FeLV, FIV, and heartworm testing; dogs get heartworm and tick-borne disease testing. Pancreatic lipase is added when the signs or the bloodwork point that way. Depending on findings we add blood pressure, NT-proBNP before an anesthetic event, or an ECG in breeds at high cardiac risk such as Boxers and Dobermans. The urinalysis is not redundant with the bloodwork: urine specific gravity can show the kidneys losing concentrating ability before creatinine moves, and protein in urine flags damage a chemistry panel alone would miss.

Slowing down is a description, not a diagnosis, and arthritis is the most common thing hiding behind it. Roughly one in five dogs is diagnosed with osteoarthritis in their lifetime, and that is a diagnosis rate rather than a true prevalence — the real number is higher, because owners read the signs as aging. Watch for the behavioral signs rather than an obvious limp: hesitating at stairs, lagging on the back half of a walk, difficulty rising after rest, no longer jumping onto the couch or into the car, restlessness or changed sleep, and new irritability when handled. Record a phone video of your dog moving at home and bring it. AAHA specifically endorses owner video, because a stressed dog on a slick exam-room floor hides exactly what we need to see. It is also worth ruling other things out, since night pacing can be pain, cognitive dysfunction, high blood pressure, or something else entirely.

They almost never do, and that is precisely the problem. More than 60% of cats have osteoarthritis in at least one joint. Feline arthritis is usually bilateral, so both sides hurt equally and there is nothing to favor, and cats rarely have the crepitus in affected joints that gives dogs away on a physical exam. In one radiographic study, owners had recognized lameness in only two cats, and no obvious pain was detected on palpation in any cat with limb arthritis. A separate retrospective radiographic study found degenerative joint disease in the limbs of 74% of 101 cats screened. What you will actually see is a cat who jumps less or jumps to a lower surface, has lost some fluidity in its gait, is less active especially at night, and newly objects to being picked up, petted, or having its back or hind legs stroked. Commonly affected joints are the hip, stifle, hock, elbow, and the spine.

Both are anti-NGF monoclonal antibodies given as a monthly in-clinic injection, and both are legitimate, currently approved options we discuss case by case rather than recommend or reject on a web page. Solensia (frunevetmab) for cats was FDA-approved in January 2022, the first monoclonal antibody approved for any animal species; the most frequently reported adverse reactions in its studies were vomiting, diarrhea, dermatitis, and hair loss. Librela (bedinvetmab) for dogs was FDA-approved in May 2023 and remains approved and on the market with no recall. It also carries a real, actively evolving safety signal. In February 2025 the US label added a Post-Approval Experience section listing ataxia, seizures, other neurologic signs, urinary incontinence, increased thirst and urination, and death including euthanasia, and the label now expects your veterinarian to provide a client information sheet and discuss adverse events with you before administration. In March 2026 the European CVMP recommended adding very rare musculoskeletal adverse events to the product information, including very rare suspected cases of abnormal osteoarthritis progression. Adverse event reports are voluntary, unverified, and do not establish that a drug caused the event, and an elderly arthritic population gets sick for many reasons. What that adds up to is a real conversation before the first injection. If your dog is already on Librela, do not stop it because of something you read online — talk to us.

Chronic kidney disease is staged 1 through 4 using the IRIS system, based on fasting creatinine and/or SDMA measured on at least two occasions in a hydrated, stable patient. One elevated value from a dehydrated cat is not a diagnosis. In cats, Stage 1 is creatinine under 1.6 mg/dL, Stage 2 is 1.6 to 2.8, Stage 3 is 2.9 to 5.0, and Stage 4 is above 5.0. Each stage is then sub-staged twice more, by urine protein:creatinine ratio and by blood pressure, because proteinuria and hypertension change what we do about it. SDMA earns its place on a senior panel because it rises earlier than creatinine and is less affected by lost muscle mass, which is the exact trap in a thin old cat. For perspective: in one study 80.9% of cats aged 15 to 20 had CKD, and among affected cats the great majority were Stage 1 or Stage 2. Most of what screening finds is early, which is the entire argument for screening rather than waiting for symptoms.

The clinical framework is DISHAA: Disorientation, altered social Interactions, disrupted Sleep-wake cycles, loss of House training and other learned behaviors, changed Activity levels, and increased Anxiety. In dogs it usually starts as sleeping through the day and becoming restless at night, less interaction with the family, getting lost or stuck in familiar rooms, and new anxiety. Cats tend the other way, toward more vocalizing and more clinging. Roughly 14 to 22.5% of dogs over eight have age-related cognitive impairment, but only about 1.9% are diagnosed, because owners file the changes under old age and never mention them. Cognitive dysfunction is also a diagnosis of exclusion, and the bloodwork is the point rather than a formality: night pacing may be arthritis pain, house-soiling may be a urinary tract infection or kidney disease or diabetes, and disorientation may be high blood pressure or an intracranial tumor. Selegiline is the only FDA-approved drug for canine cognitive dysfunction, with improvement reported in up to 70% of dogs, and it is combined with enrichment, dietary support, and anxiety medication where anxiety is a real component. It slows and softens the condition. It does not reverse it.

Age by itself is not a disease and is not a contraindication. AAHA states that advanced age does not preclude surgery or other significant medical intervention, and that senior pets can safely undergo multiple anesthetic events. What determines risk is organ function, cardiac and respiratory reserve, and concurrent disease, which is why the answer starts with pre-anesthetic bloodwork and NT-proBNP strongly considered before an anesthetic event, rather than with a birthday. For senior patients we use tailored induction, preoxygenation where there is cardiac or pulmonary disease, active warming, padded positioning, minimized anesthesia time, and longer recovery monitoring. The honest counterweight to 'she is too old for a dental' is usually that she has been in chronic oral pain for two years. Our dental page covers the anesthesia protocol in detail, and our standard dental is $999 with extractions quoted separately. One real limit: if a senior patient would need overnight intravenous care after a procedure, that is a planned transfer to a 24-hour hospital, because we have no overnight staff.

The most widely used is the HHHHHMM scale developed by Dr. Alice Villalobos, which scores seven domains from 0 to 10 for a total out of 70: Hurt (pain control and the ability to breathe), Hunger, Hydration, Hygiene, Happiness, Mobility, and More good days than bad. Roughly 35 is the reference point — consistently above it generally means quality of life remains acceptable and supportive care can continue, and a total that stays below it is the signal to have a fuller conversation. Two cautions we would rather state than skip. AAHA notes that very few quality-of-life scales for animals are validated and that most found online are not; HHHHHMM has had one partial validation in a narrow sample, so it is a structured framework, not a diagnostic instrument. And a score is not an instruction to do anything. Its real value is that it makes you look at seven specific things instead of drowning in one enormous feeling. Marking good days and bad days on a calendar works nearly as well and costs nothing.

No web page can answer that for your animal, and any page that tries is selling you a certainty it does not have. What we can do is name the moments AAHA lists as the ones that should trigger the conversation: not eating, symptoms progressing, severe or unrelenting chronic pain, deterioration during active treatment, a persistent cough even at rest, cognitive dysfunction that keeps advancing, and mobility that has failed. Bring those to us and we will work through it properly — your understanding of where things stand, a full exam with a pain assessment, an honest prognosis, your goals rather than ours, and only then the options: continued treatment, symptom and pain management with us, referral to a hospice or mobile end-of-life provider, or humane euthanasia. For our established clients we do offer in-home euthanasia, subject to availability — ask about it early rather than assuming it on the day, because it depends on the schedule and on who is in the building. We are not a full hospice service, so where a family wants ongoing hospice support at home we will point you to a provider who does that. Tell us when you book that this is what the visit is about. We will also talk through the setting in advance if you want to. One thing we have to say plainly: we are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no overnight staff and no after-hours on-call line. If your pet is suffering on a Saturday night, an emergency hospital can provide humane euthanasia that night, and mobile end-of-life veterinarians serve Colorado Springs. Waiting until Monday because you would rather it be us is not the kind choice.