Dreams? Nightmares?

[Stephandy]

Just want to see if anyone has any thoughts on this? DO dogs dream? do they have nightmares? Our Pepper did this a few times, my wife and I cannot think of anything else besides nightmare....He is just sleeping peacefully, all of a sudden, he jumps up and run around the bed and bark like he has seen a ghost...I mean, he freaks out sometimes when he has to pee in the morning, making lots of noise, scratching us, then jump off the bed if we do not take him outside and pees on the floor...therefore, the "nightmare epsiode is definitely different. I dont think he was freaking out because there is an intruder or anything in our yard because he does not bark in a particular direction like he is honing on something...so we really think it is nightmare, he acts really scared after he calms down too...what do you guys think?

[MikeC]

All of the dogs I have had over the years including the Cairn I now have, have made various types of sounds during their sleep. We just assumed that like humans, animals dream and those sounds are external reactions to their dreams, but I have never had one who acted like your Pepper. I doubt that it is anything, but you may want to ask your vet. Cairns have remarkable hearing and it's possible Pepper is hearing something that you and your wife are not.

MikeC

[Bekah]

Liddy seems to dream in her sleep, too. She has the running dream where her legs kick, the barking dream where she makes a soft high-pitched noise, and the sniffing dream where her nose twitches. Sometimes, she will have a combination dream.

Only once when she was a puppy did Liddy seem to have a "nightmare." She was sound asleep in her crate when she suddenly woke up and started to make a barking like she was scared, it sounded very anxious. We let her out of the crate and she was shaking all over and whimpering.

I'm sorry to hear about Pepper's nightmares as they sound very stressful for both of you. Have you ever heard of humans having "night terrors?" I don't know much about them but they're an extreme form of nightmares and sometimes combine sleepwalking/sleep talking. I wonder if Pepper is experiencing something like that.

[newcairn]

Probably dreaming about you, and how much he/she loves you. Digby does this, he wimpers a bit in his sleep and his legs move a little like he is chasing. I always imagine he dreaming about playing the games he likes to play with me or my wife. At this point it is all he knows is us, so it might be a safe assumption. But he could be dreaming about his littermates too. Who knows, but I like to think he is thinking about his family even when he sleeps.

[Guest webstar]

Molly makes sounds and movement while sleeping, when it sounds like a whimper I gently rub her back and it seems to soothe her. The times that she jumps off the bed barking is because she heard a strange noise. She barks at the snowplow going by or any strange cars it seems she can tell the difference by the engine sounds. My dh says she knows when I'm coming home 3 minutes before I get in the driveway.

[Kathryn]

All of my dogs have seemed to dream. Allie, my current cairn, makes little "woofs" in her sleep once in a while. Annie, my last cairn, used to move her legs as though running while she was asleep once in a while. Once when she was taking a nap, I noticed she was wagging her tail very slightly. I think that must have been a really good dream.

[Scully'sMom]

Both my former Cairn, and also Scully, experienced "dreaming." She will make these little barking noises, she'll start moving her legs, etc. I don't have any experience in them having "nightmares", sorry. Hope you get an answer!

[wags]

Night terrors in humans is caused by low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. Miniature dogs can have hypoglycemia.

[Eliz222]

Scout and Finch make noises when they dream too...usually little whimpers or their legs move. Finch can go from a sound sleep to barking her head off in 2 seconds. I think she hears noises, and since she is just waking up, she's not sure what the noise is and she starts to bark. Or, it could be because she spends most of her day barking at every little noise!