Dog lost her bark

Question
My 13 yo Border Collie has lost her bark.  She does bark but it sounds like a whisper.  She was diagnosed with diabetes about 1 year ago and has been on insulin. The vet seemed to think she had Cushings, but I did not want to pursue testing, since I did not want to treat her for Cushings because of her age. She is in no pain and is very happy.  My vet did not seem to concerned about it nor gave me any real answers.  I would like a different opinion regarding my squeaky sounding dog.
Thank you for your time.  I look forward to hearing from you.   Sincerely Beth

Answer
Beth,

I've never heard of anything like that before, unless she usually barks a lot and maybe has laryngitis?!  So I did some research and found that there is a form of neuropathy in dogs and cats that can be linked to diabetes.  Neuropathy is when nerves die.  This occurs in human diabetes but is usually seen as numbness in the extremities (feet and hands).  Here's a link to what I found on the subject for cats and dogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyneuropathy_in_dogs_and_cats

It says that the loss of nerve function, associated with the vocal region can come back with treatment of the diabetes, but I really can't say for sure if that's the case.  I've never seen this first-hand, but I hope the link is helpful to you.

Take Care,

Laura