Supporting brain health in aging dogs through enrichment, appropriate exercise, and emerging medical interventions can extend the period of cognitive function and quality of life in senior dogs.
Cognitive decline in senior dogs causes welfare harm through the progressive loss of the mental capacities that enable dogs to navigate their social and physical world. Dogs with advancing CDS become disoriented in familiar environments, lose the conditioned behaviors that structure their daily lives, develop anxiety from confusion, and may lose the house training that enables them to live as companion animals. Early intervention through enrichment and available medical treatments may slow this progression, extending the period during which dogs maintain the cognitive function needed for a good quality of life. The parallel between canine and human cognitive aging has made dogs valuable models for dementia research, with the welfare benefit of this research flowing in both directions — advances in CDS understanding improve treatment options for affected dogs while informing human dementia science.