Ever notice your Morkie’s legs twitching, or hear her making little noises in her sleep? Chances are, your Morkie is having a dream.
In that way, it seems dogs are like humans. When researchers looked for specific proof that dogs do indeed dream, they came up with a number of tests that show they do. By measuring electrical activity in the brain, it’s clear that dogs patterns are very similar to ours while asleep and dreaming
What do dogs dream about?
Of course, we will never know, but it seems reasonable to think that they dream about some version of their everyday lives, just like us. Some dogs appear to dream about their inbred breed characteristics. For example, a Pointer seems to be dreaming about, well…. pointing, during sleep, based on his body positions.
When does dreaming start?
About 20 minutes after your Morkie dozes off, his sleep gets deeper, and his breathing is more regular. When he starts dreaming, breathing gets more shallow, his muscles might twitch and you can see that behind his eyelids, his eyes are moving around. That’s REM sleep – or rapid eye movement. It’s like the brain is actually watching a “movie” of the dream.
Dog expert Cesar Millan notes that small dogs dream more often than large ones – possible every 10 minutes or so. And senior dogs of any size, seem to dream more.
During a dream, your Morkie may whimper or paw at the air, as he reenacts some kind of adventure. What kind? Well, we will never know what our dogs dream of, but we do know that they do dream.
Should you wake your Morkie up during a dream?
Our first impulse may be to wake up a whimpering, twitching Morkie during his dream, but it’s better to let him sleep through it.
Naturally, if he wakes up frightened, do what you can to calm him. Otherwise, “let sleeping dogs lie” as the old saying goes.