Experts are of the opinion that there is more than one reason for your dog to move, cry, or even run while sleeping. Do not worry as this behavior is more than normal and very frequent in our four-legged friends
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
If you own a dog then you will surely have seen your wagging friend move his paws more than once as he sleeps dozing in his kennel. And you have most likely wondered what your furry dog was dreaming of at that moment or what huge expanse he was imagining running.
The habit of moving around in your sleep, whimpering and even running repeatedly is a rather common behavior among dogs. Our four-legged friends spend about half of their days sleeping and during these more or less frequent naps they go through various stages of sleep.
In these sleep cycles, dogs, just like us humans, are seized by involuntary movements that are called mioclonie. These are short muscle contractions that occur during sleep or in the phase before falling asleep.
However, myoclonia are very frequent during the REM phase, to which the phenomenon of dreaming is linked. It is at this stage that we experience dream experiences most intensely and it is assumed that the same can happen in dogs.
We can't say definitively that dogs are having experiences like ours, but it's hard not to imagine that they do.
explained Professor Marcos Frank of Washington State University, whose research field is precisely the function of sleep in animals.
It is not only the dream activity that makes dogs move in sleep, but also the consolidation of their memory during sleep. In fact, a 2017 behavioral study published in the prestigious journal Nature highlighted the relationship between sleep and learning in dogs.
Research has shown that dogs would use naps to reinforce their memories, reliving the events of the day, encounters with one's fellow men and thus repeating the movements of the day.
There is also another scientific explanation that adds to the list. Our pets would move in their sleep for possible brain stem injury and specifically to an anatomical part called the bridge. This inhibits body movement during sleep from the neck down, but not in the case of injury, as shown in a 1974 study.
The presence of any lesions would therefore make dogs and cats more active while they sleep, causing the movement of their limbs in sleep.
Fonte: Nature / NIH
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