Elderly dog advice [View all]

[Tab]

There probably really isn't any "advice" for this but wondering if anyone else has heard of such a thing.

We have three dogs. The eldest is a rescue, Shepherd/Rottweiler mix, I think he's about 16 years old. Plays with the younger dogs but often likes to just sleep on the couch.

The last year or so he's been doing some "doggie dementia" things; he gets lost in thought sometimes, but generally is pretty lucid. However he's developed this habit to walking around to wastebaskets and rooting in them and pulling out paper. There's no food in them, and he doesn't do anything with the paper once he gets it out; he just likes to poke his head in, root around, and get something.

Of course, our office floor (and bathroom too) gets littered with these retrieved pieces of paper. One obvious solution is to continually empty the wastebasket, but frankly if there was just one single item in it, he'd probably take that. The bathroom has a spring top (foot pedal) closed basket, but according to my son he goes in, noses the cover up, and then goes rooting around.

We're resigned to dealing with this until he passes (which might be this year) but wondering if anyone else has dealt with this.

Thanks

- Tab