Life with a four-legged friend is a surprising continuous discovery and today we are going to find out why does the dog run in his sleep: how many times have you seen that it moves its paws while sleeping peacefully?
In our experience as an animal owner, we will certainly have had the pleasure of seeing him sleep, the funny positions he assumes, the relaxed expressions printed on his face, the eyes that close slowly… and the paws that move as if was running happy on a green expanse of grass in the shade of cherry blossoms.
Why does he run? It is a symptom of agitation of sleep or is a phenomenon altogether physiological and therefore there is no need to worry?
Why do dogs run in their sleep?
It seems that dogs dream exactly like we humans do and during the dream they can run!
But let’s go to understand the details better: scientific studies aimed at investigating and understanding the mysteries of sleep in dogs have demonstrated, thanks to non-invasive encephalograms carried out during the dog’s sleep, that their brain waves could be assimilated to human ones. In particular, it has been found that dogs also go through a REM phase (Rapid Eye Movement), during the time frame covered by their rest, and also in dogs, this moment corresponds to that of Deep sleep.
Similarly to what happens in humans, therefore, Fido seems rework experiences daily experiences experienced while awake and therefore performs movements such as running, or gestures such as yelping, depending on what he is dreaming.
But what are the sleep stages about Fido and what exactly does he dream about?
Dogs and sleep stages
They can be distinguished four different stages of sleep in dogs, based on the phenomenology of their reactions and behavior:
- falling asleep;
- light sleep;
- Deep sleep;
- REM phase.
Phase of falling asleep
While falling asleep, the four-legged dozes off, literally “falls asleep” and does so in a relatively short time; Fido can often fall into Morpheus’ arms even while he is playing or while he is being cuddled.
It therefore corresponds to a state of complete relaxation, but be careful: at this moment the dog is not yet completely asleep therefore he is able to respond to external stimuli suddenly!
Light sleep stage
During light sleep the organism begins to lower functions, including the heart rate, which undergoes a slight decrease. Despite this, even now Fido can respond to external stimuli.
Deep sleep phase
Although dreaming activity is not yet detected, during deep sleep, which lasts just under half an hour, the dog breathes more slowly and lowers the physiological functions, although the muscle tone does not undergo changes.
REM phase
During REM, our sleeping dog is in the deeper sleepcharacterized by rapid eye movements and rapid brain waves which are the basis of our four-legged dream activity, which may be dreaming of running or barking!
This is precisely the moment when the dog runs in his sleep, kicks, cries, howls or flicks his ears, because he is blissfully dreaming.
This stage is relatively short, as it only represents the 15% circa of internal canine sleep, although in puppies the percentage is slightly higher.
Sleep and age
To better understand how our 4-legged friend’s sleep works, we need to make a clarification based on the age of the sleeping dog.
Sleep and learning in puppies
In puppies, sleep turns out physiologically more restless, but don’t worry, it’s just a development mode! If the dog runs in his sleep, then this is completely normal. During sleep, the puppy consolidates what it has learned while awake, organizing its new experiences and linking them to those it has already learned, especially during deep sleep.
In this part of the rest, in fact, the so-called “sleep spindles”, brain waves with a frequency between 12 and 16 Hz and lasting about one second that identify a particular brain activity, in which the information contained in the hippocampus is transferred to the cortex.
Sleep in adult and older dogs
In adult dogs, regular and physiological sleep presents the four phases that we have just described.
As far as an elderly 4-legged is concerned, we can say that the dog runs in its sleep because it has a slightly rest phase more agitated. Contextually, senior dogs need a more hours of sleep to get enough rest.