Sleeplessness In My10-Year-Old Grey

[LDGreen]

My beast is named Sandman, but you'd never guess it lately. He wakes up in the middle of the night and either goes outside to bark at -what? - or lies on his bed yipping gently until someone gives him a treat or a pat. Then he'll sleep for a couple of more hours and repeat the process. He is not in pain, and this is driving us nuts. Even a long walk before bedtime doesn't help.

 

The vet says sleeplessness in older dogs is as common as it is in humans and is researching melatonin as a possible treatment. Does anyone on this board have experience with that or other possibilities? We humans need to get some rest!

[Guest normaandburrell]

Sorry, I have had some very old dogs (greys and nongreys), but never experienced this. I did have an old cat who would wake us up and demand treats. I had to put her in another room for it to stop.

[seeh2o]

Maybe try some Melatonin at bed time?

[LDGreen]

The vet is looking into melatonin, but didn't sound particularly sure of dosage or effectiveness. I was hoping someone here had tried it.

Edited September 29, 2014 by LDGreen

[seeh2o]

I've given melatonin for fur loss, 3mg dose. I believe I've read they can have up to 6mg.

[macoduck]

Here's a recent thread on a similar topic.

http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/309208-advice-needed-for-125-yr-old-with-ccd/

[Guest FordRacingRon]

My beast is named Sandman, but you'd never guess it lately. He wakes up in the middle of the night and either goes outside to bark at -what? - or lies on his bed yipping gently until someone gives him a treat or a pat. Then he'll sleep for a couple of more hours and repeat the process. He is not in pain, and this is driving us nuts. Even a long walk before bedtime doesn't help.

 

The vet says sleeplessness in older dogs is as common as it is in humans and is researching melatonin as a possible treatment. Does anyone on this board have experience with that or other possibilities? We humans need to get some rest!

I have a couple of threads on my dog but I will give the short version.

 

Leia is 11. We thought she was sundowning as about 5 pm her switch turns on and she is not my daytime dog. Panting, wandering, begging. We though she had doggy Alzhiemers but it isn't so. She would go to sleep though at about 11pm as though the switch was turned back off.

 

But then almost every night at about 1am she would turn into, really, your dog. Would want to go out for no reason. Sometimes would bark, rarely do her business. In the house pacing and barking.

 

We tried various OTC type drugs (like melatonin) and nothing really worked. We had to go pharmaceutical. So now we use these drugs for both her 5 pm and her middle of the night. We rotate between Diazapam (Valium) and Trazadone. We get the script from the vet and fill it at Walgreens. We use two different ones because the effects of one will stop working so we change until the other one doesn't work then we change back. Now she probably only gets me up 2 out of 7 nights a week,,unless she has a bonafide bathroom need. We give her whatever the drug of the day will be at around 5 pm then her other dose when we go to bed.

 

At least now I get some sleep. Most nights.

[LDGreen]

Thanks to all who responded. Funny thing - I was out of town this week and he didn't bother my husband at all. I got back yesterday, took Sandy for a nice long evening walk, and he was up again in the middle of the night barking for no particular reason.

 

I'll try melatonin first, then if no results I'll ask the vet for a script for Trazadone.