Driver's nightmare.....

[Anonymous Poster]

Driver\'s nightmare.....

'Driver' is my daughter's twelve week old curr pup. I was sitting here a little while ago and I heard him start howling and yipping, crying out in pain is what it sounded like. I jumped up and ran out on the back porch expecting to find him in the jaws of a Bear or something and there he lay, on his side on the porch, legs going ninety to nothing, screaming and hollering for all he was worth. Sound asleep.

I had to nudge him with my toe to bring him out of it and then he looked at me with this 'Thank God you woke me up' look. What the heck does a twelve week old puppy have to dream about that could be that scary?

 

[BB_TX]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

My son and his wife have a 5 year old registered black cocker that does the same thing and has since she was a pup. Once every few weeks or so, she will wake them up during the night howling and carrying on the same way, yet she is sound asleep. Not quite as often now as when she was younger. They wake her up and she is OK. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Go figure.

 

[RichZ]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

I don't know what dogs dream about, but being as intelligent as they are, I believe that they must have imaginations similar to small children. Their intelligence is equivalent.

My mastiff, Mulder, has terrible nightmares. He moans, cries and barks. When he wakes up, he always nudges me awake (usually I hear him and I wake him up ) and he'll keep poking me, until I lay down on the floor with him. I have to lay on the floor next to him, and put an arm over him. Usually, he quickly falls asleep, and I sneak back into bed.

I have no idea what he dreams about that is so scarey to him. He was raised by people, and we got him at 8 weeks old. He loves everybody and everything, no one or nothing has ever been unkind to him. I would think he was dreaming about his two knee surgeries, but he started having nightmares before he ever had the surgeries. I always wish he could talk so he could tell me what's so scarey.

My other two dogs occaisionally have nightmares, but not as often or bad as Mulder's.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

Dixi, the pointer mix we used to have was terrified of thunder. Every time a storm blew up she would take off runing. She didn't care where or how far, as long as she thought she was getting away from it. I don't know how many times I had to go retrieve her from under the neighbors house after a storm. Why the neighbor's house was better than ours I have no idea. I would sit and hold her and she would tremble all the way through the storm. there was just no way to calm her.

 

[Golfgar4]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

We have a little Yorkie that is afraid of the sound of pots and pans banging on the stove. It all started last December when my son decided to cook some cheese steak sandwiches. He got a little carried away with the oil in the pan, and with a combination of too much oil and way too much heat, we had smoke alarms going off all over the house! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Well, when that smoke started rolling out of the kitchen, Bailey took off upstairs and climbed up on the bed and under the covers and just shook. We had to go up and hold her for awhile too.

So every time we'd be getting pots or pans out to cook with, she'd take off and go hide under the covers again. She's just now starting to get over it some.

 

[Hank]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

<font color="purple"> Dixi, the pointer mix we used to have was terrified of thunder. Every time a storm blew up she would take off runing. She didn't care where or how far, as long as she thought she was getting away from it. </font>

One of our Ibizans is also terrified of thunder. She seeks out the center of the house, furthest away from windows in any direction.

All four of our sighthounds dream like you describe. I never took it to be a nightmare, but they get to yelping, twitching, and "running". I always took it to be a dream of a rabbit chase. They yelp similarly when chasing a real hare. But it sounds like a dog being hurt when they yelp like that. One day our other Ibizan leaped out of the truck chasing after one of those big desert hares on our property. She yelped with every stride, and our nearest neighbor came outside frantically calling her dog, because it sounded just like it does when a dog gets hurt.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

So that's a Ibizan, huh? Neat looking dog! What's a sighthound?

 

[Trev]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( So every time we'd be getting pots or pans out to cook with, she'd take off and go hide under the covers again. She's just now starting to get over it some. )</font>

Reminds me of my old terrier from childhood. My mother was getting the hang of a new car, the first one we'd had with power brakes. Every time she stopped, the poor dog would slide off the seat and land on the floor. Got to the point that when my mom would get behind the wheel, the dog would whine and climb down on the floor of the car. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Hank]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

That's a wire coat (they also come smooth), and in fact looks like a close relative of our two wires (probably the same breeder).

Sighthounds are all ancient breeds (Ibizans are 5,000 years old). They are the hound breeds that were bred to hunt with their eyes and speed, as opposed to the scenthounds (like beagles) who keep their nose to the ground.

Other sighthound breeds are Greyhounds, Whippets, Borzoi's, Afghans, Salukis, Irish Wolfhounds, and so on.

In the UK, they call them gazehounds /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Here's one of our Ibizans , and the other.

We also have two adopted Greyhounds, and a German Shedder.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Re: Driver\'s nightmare.....

We had a Golden Retriever years ago who, as a puppy, would toddle off down the hall and walk, head held high, under our bed to go to sleep.

As she got older she had to duck under the bed, then, later, crawl under the bed.

Old habits die hard and when she was far from a puppy at least in size she still wanted to sleep under the bed and would walk up to my side and kind of fall against it to the floor with a deep sigh. She would then push herself part way underneath on her side.

While I found this odd (and even disturbing when she would do the bed flop thing when I was just entering REM state) I just took it as part of her being her.

One night (actually at 3:12 AM, not that I remember), I'm awakened by this terrifying sound that seems to be eminating from inside my chest. I leap from bed and realize it's her under the bed. Her legs were thrashing and she was crying and howling like I had never heard. I thought she was stuck or hurt. I immediately grabbed the bedframe on my side of the bed and lifted it up chest high to save her.

Unfortunately my wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time, was not as quick to get out of bed as me. Ohhhh... she was out of bed alright, though. A 'puppy nightmare' caused me to dump my pregnant spouse rather unceremoniously to the floor from a sound sleep.

Fortunately, the mattress slid from the box springs as I was hoisting the bed so there was no real 'drop' involved. It was more of a slide and roll. Somehow I don't get much credit for that when she tells the story. It's been almost twenty-five years ago and I still hear about it on occasion.