Could my dog be having seizures?
My dog is quite old – age 14 years. In the last week, I’ve noticed that she will sometimes have episodes when she’s sleeping where she will make a very soft, muffled barking noise, 10 to 15 times in succession, accompanied with a quivering of her body. It will stop, and she will continue to sleep. If I wake her, she has a disoriented look about her eyes. Otherwise, except for a few fatty tumors, she’s in good health and relatively active for a dog of that age.
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That sounds more like dreaming than seizures.
If it is a seizure it is extremely mild, and dogs have amnesia for seizures anyway. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Gormless Prince used to do that frequently; we called it “chasing rabbits.”
My dogs do exactly the same thing. They are merely dreaming. I think when they are twitching they are perhaps running in their dream. As you say, when you wake them, they have a glazed look in their eyes. I think this is because they aren’t fully awake.
I also was quite concerned about my dogs acting in this manner. I spoke to the breeder and he said this was quite natural – just dreams.
I can understand why you are concerned though. Hope this helps
<—Molly does that all the time, and I call it chasing rabbits also. She was doing it last night and I woke her up and she looked confused for a moment and then was okay.
@janbb loll…Spunky did that also…we called it, chasing squirrels! She thought it was her duty to run all the squirrels from our golf course. Live very closeby and would take her there everyday. She loved it.
Agreed, it is dreaming!
I lived with a dog which was dying of cancer (inoperable because of a weak heart) and had seizures. It behaved in the manner you describe, complete with yelps and twitches, but it always lost control of its bladder and the seizure was usually preceeded by a “thud” as it fell over. Unless your dog is losing control of its bladder during these episodes, I suspect it’s just dreaming, as others have suggested.
my dog dreams and has seizures, both with movement. she doesnt make noise with the seizure most of the time, but does during doggie dream.
and she does lose control of the bladder during seizure.
if you woke me, I would look disoriented too. I was chasing stuff, man…......
My dog does that, and he’s fairly young. I’m sure it’s just dreaming. He started yelping in his sleep this weekend and my 3 yo grandson almost had a seizure from laughing so hard.
Thank you all for the peace of mind. She’s a good dog.
@PandoraBoxx Yes I suppose it’s human nature to worry about them when they are getting older, particularly in the case of possible seizures. Dogs ask for nothing but to be loved, and give you years of loyalty in return, don’t you think?
I don’t know, this one asks for half of the bed, pizza, a ride in the basket of my bike, pretzels, and to arm wrestle the cat. :-)
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