Question
QUESTION: My normally friendly 5 month old mixed breed dog has nightmares at times, and he is getting very large! He just woke from a nightmare and ran at my husband, growling in a very protective, aggressive way, and only stopped upon hearing us call his name to calm him down. Acted chagrinned, apologized , and promptly went back to sleep. My husband is not especially keen on aggressive dogs (who is?), and is not comfortable at ALL with this behavior. Any ideas? The pup is a rescue (but we got him 8 weeks ago....no bad experiences, traumas here, that we can think of). He's awoken sort of like this twice before, but when he was less intimidating. Kind of hallucinating-like. Can this be related in some way to some kind of hormone surge (puppy puberty?)
ANSWER: Is there a common trigger for all 3 incidents? Was someone walking by his bed, or was he possibly startled out of sleep by a loud noise? Let me know if this is the case and I can offer suggestions to help.
However, if he's waking himself out of a sound sleep with no outside stimulus that's apparent, I would highly recommend you get him to a vet ASAP. The "nightmare" you think you're seeing could actually be a seizure. There are are number of causes of seizures that can manifest in aggression and your vet may refer you to a neurologist.
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QUESTION: thank you. upon further thought, the one common thing is that upon waking, he "sees" something looming, and out of place. there were piles of materials placed over my husbands prone head when the dog awoke, and it seems to be THOSE that he (the dog) was aggresive towards. Another time, it was a stuffed christmas thingy, placed high on a wardrobe, and he did the same thing, ....growling and barking, all puffed up, at the stuffed snowman...it took taking it down, introducing him to it, letting him touch it and sniff it, to calm him down. my husband thinks he may have some trouble with his vision, i will be taking him to a vet to have that checked out. thanks for your input, elena