Ask McFartnuggets: “Why Does My Grandpa With Alzheimer's Only Talk To His Dog?

When you get to a certain age
the only people you can stand
are dogs.

Dear McFartnuggets: 

My grandpa has been suffering from Alzheimer's for five years now and has lost most of his speech. He never responds to anyone in our family when we visit and try to talk to him. The weird thing is we got him a dog about two years ago and he talks to the dog all the time! It’s mostly nonsense, but he is talking to the dog and he won’t talk to anyone else. Why does my grandpa only talk to his dog? Why won’t he talk to me? -- Christina from Gainesville, Florida

Dear Christina:

This is actually a rather common phenomenon with Alzheimer’s sufferers. It’s very tragic and hurts when your loved one will only talk to a mutt and not people who have loved him for decades, but fortunately there is a way to get around that. When this happened to my grandpa we were all devastated, but I got the idea to buy a full sized dog costume and wear that to visit him. At first it didn’t work so I had to work on my dog impression, the walking on all fours and barking thing. Once I mastered those techniques he actually spoke to me. It was in cryptic senile gibberish, but I felt that bond that we once had and to me, it was all worth it. If you have a couple hundred bucks lying around for a realistic dog costume like the one from that FX show “Wilfred” I seriously suggest you give it a try. If it doesn’t work, it’s not the suit, you just need to work on your dog impersonation.

Send your questions to PizzaTesticles@yahoo.com and always remember, when in doubt, act like a dog.