Dogs get depressed, too.

I read a number of cases where dogs get sick or die soon after their handler or master or their best friend (dog playmate) disappear, leave them or die. The dog will start to search for his lost friend and when he didn’t find him, he will sulk in his bed, lose his appetite, and in fact lose interest in the world.

Such is the case of this one old dog whose young dog playmate died from certain sickness. Soon after, he loses interest in everything. Other than being weak the dog has no illness. He just decided he don’t want to eat, promenade anywhere, play and bark. The vet said it must be due to old age, he’s 12 years old anyway. The time that the owners decided to put him to sleep was also the time they decided to get a new puppy because, the couple being childless, they thought they can’t do without a dog in the house. The new puppy walk across the room and the old dog got a glimpse of it. Then, as if his interest was awakened, he got up from his bed, walked towards the pup and started biting the pup’s ear (like what he usually does with his old playmate). Then the vet asked the owner to give him something to eat and without hesitation the dog started to eat up. The dog lived more years after that having a good time with his new playmate.

I got this story from Mr. James Herriot’s book about his experiences on dog. Some people get depress when their best dog buddy died and the best advice is “Get a new dog.” It’s the same thing with dogs. No, not get a new master. Haha! Get another dog to bring him back to life.

How about you? How do you keep your dog from getting depress?

 

I also think that even dogs got depressed such as the samples you had stated.

Last year when one of our dog died, the other dog try to look around for that dog and he seems no appetite. We just make him more occupied by playing with him and spending more time with him.

 

Wow, that's absolutely adorable. It's just cute how the puppy was able to bring him back to life. This is true. Dogs can go through a depression phase, especially when a loved one dies. I've also heard stories of dogs going on a rebellious phase after their master died.

There was also this interesting story of a pack of dogs who used to live in peace but no longer was after their alpha CAT died. Yes, the cat was the Alpha and there was total chaos after that cat died. I'm not sure if it were a Dog Whisperer episode or something else but it was quite interesting.