Dreams... nightmares?

[catnapper]

Lately Nicki has been having a lot of dreams. She starts woofing lightly and her legs start twitching... you can tell that she's in deep REM because those eyelids are fluttering a mile a minute.

Usually my husband or I will lightly put a hand on her to wake her up because they don't neccessarily look like happy dreams.

Is this normal? Are they bad dreams? She really does have them often.... about every day, and sometimes a few in one night. She had a lot of them as a puppy, but we thought they were happy dreams of casing squirrels and bunnies, but then she stopped. She has begun dreaming really heavy again... she's 9 year old now.

[Cincy'sMom]

I don't know if they are nightmare or not, but our Sadie will do the same thing. Awake, she is our quitest dog, barely barks. But she falls alseep and strats growling andbarking. it is sorta funny, but after a minute or two, if she has not stopped, we do pet her to calm her down. I think dogs dream like we do, and it that it is normal. If touching her or gtnley shaking her, doesn't not stop the twitching, that is what could signal a problem.

[BCBlondie]

We used to have a deaf aussie/bc mix that would do the same thing. She'd twitch her feet and whine sometimes. I didn't mind her twitching her feet but when she started barking or whining I woke her up and she was fine.

Maybe talk to your vet about it? I also agree with what Cincy'sMom said - if touching her gently doesn't stop her twitching, that could mean there's a problem. Maybe it's just another phase? Like you said, she went through it when she was a puppy. Maybe she'll stop again.

[dukedogsmom]

Duke does this sometimes and he's almost 11. If it sounds like he's having a bad dream, I wake him up by barely touching him. Don't want to scare him. He doesn't do it a lot, though.

[catnapper]

She has never been in such a deep sleep that a soft touch hasn't woken her up. I am just a bit worried because its so frequent.... I was sitting here reading responses and she was dreaming (second time today) Maybe my girl just happens to have a brilliant imagination and is just having nice adventures in her sleep - perhaps beating the cats up instead of them pushing her around?