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Dog Nightmares


hankdog
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My Jake is a seven year old bulldog cross. A rescue to me two years ago, anxiety issues, dog aggressive and medicated on Prozac. He is an active sleeper, twitching and running and snoring of course. He's been thyroid tested and all his bloods were normal.

Just lately he's started having nightmares. He wakes up crying and upset. He will come paw me and wake me up for comfort. Last night he started barking, I turned on the light and he was standing barking at the wall, he startled and took off but when his feet hit the wooden hallway floor he seemed to wake up. He stopped and looked confused then jumped in bed and cuddled up and went back to sleep.

Do other dogs have such active dreams?

Edited by hankdog
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Maya has less severe ones, she will cry out, thrash her limbs and whimper, nothing quite so drastic as your boy :( But she calms when I talk to her. I wonder if something like crate training would help your boy feel more secure at night? Was that the worst nightmare experience he's had or has behaviour like that become more constant?

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He is crate trained and happy to pop in and out as he wants to, not happy to be closed in though. The nightmares are new. I did try lowering his meds but his anxiety rockets just dropping by 5 mg. "Stuff" is real to Jake, he can decide that a certain area is not to be walked on and then it's game on to get him there, although I think he's one of those drama queen type dogs. His reactions are loud and explosive, he's a "colorful" character. I just sometimes lose what's "normal" for dogs hence my question.

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Hankdog, Stella used to have horrendous nightmares quite frequently. She'd whine, bark, whimper, hyperventilate. All 4 legs would shake & quiver. Sometimes she would be running & running while lying down if that makes sense. She'd howl very loudly. To be honest it used to really frighten me the intensity of them. She has always done this right from a puppy. Sometimes she'd jump up & start to run, like she is running from whatever frightened her :(

I usually wake her if I think she is getting too stressed. I don't touch nor engage her. I just cough or talk a bit louder or something random to bring her out of it.

However since she has been on medication for Epilepsy I have noticed these nightmares have all but stopped. So I'm unsure whether these were in fact all nightmares or slight seizures....

Sorry to hear Jake is having a rough time with them of late. They are quite distressing to witness at times. He is a very complex boy like my Stel.

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Robo often dreams! He'll be wriggling his legs and every now and then he'll yip and growl. Sometimes he'll seem like he's eating because his lips will move haha. If it gets too ridiculous I'll whistle or tickle his feet and he wakes up and looks at me all sleepily laugh.gif so cute.

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Didi has pretty intense puppy dreams, mainly just lots of twitching and shuddering, all four legs shaking and sometimes her eyelids start shuddering and open showing her third eyelid (which is really creepy btw) but some nights I think maybe she is having a bad dream because she will make these little wimpers/yelps and howl in a manner that sounds like she's in pain. I normally wake her up when they are that bad because it's a bit distressing so I can imagine your boy's nightmares must be quite scary for you :(

She's done this since a puppy, the slightly more intense dreams a bit more recently so I'm not really sure if there's an underlying problem or she just has a vivid imagination.

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Collie used to howl sometimes in his sleep, you could tell when he was dreaming because it would be muffled slightly from his face on the bed. Would stop pretty quickly though and on the odd occasion we were there to witness it he didn't seem overly distressed.

Interestingly since we got Sarah it rarely happens, maybe she's keeping him up all night :p

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Yep bear does, I think I did a thread on it last year? She'll be crying in her sleep and when she wakes/gets woken she comes tearing over to me whimpering and cowering with her eyes still half closed and climbs up while trying to fit inside my clothes (she's a toller, so not too small)! She stays distressed for about 20 minutes. She doesn't do it often but when she does she's like a completely different dog. My mum was on the phone once when she did it, she thought someone must have broken in with the noises bear was making.

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Hamlet never had nightmares ..but was always chasing bunnies ..they eyes would move , he would bark with his mouth closed ..so a muffled one, thank goodness ..and the tail would wag as the legs ran .Sometimes he would whimper with excitement ....

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I have found that DAP spray gave Stella some relief from her night horrors as well Hankdog. I just sprayed her bedding about half hour before she retired & she did sleep more soundly I found. May give Jake some relief as well. Just a thought.

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A quick google search shows that Prozac and nightmares are linked so possibly his meds? I know when I was taking anti-anxiety meds they gave me very vivid dreams.

My Jasper has noisy, active dreams. When I think he's getting worked up, I whisper to him that we love him and he always settles.

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