Yesterday my dog witnessed my mothers large dog coughing up a lot of blood. He had gotten into rat poison.

When I took my dog home yesterday he had nightmares three times now. He will be completely asleep then wake up yelping as if he has really hurt himself. I feel so sad when I hear him yelp like that. I will take my dog to visit my mothers dog in the hospital today so my dog can see that he is alright.

Has anyone else ever had such experience? What did you do to comfort your dog?

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Nothing real concrete on the net but many attribute "nightmares" to REM sleep. All animals have some form of REM sleep much like humans.

When our golden retriever was 3 mos old my uncle accidentally dropped him on the drive way. Since that time we thought he was having nightmares. The whimpers, REM, and occasional twitching of his paws during sleep. Can't say if it was or wasn't. All I know is when my uncle was a half block radius from the house he start barking like a guard dog. lol.

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stop feeding him table food/cheap dog food. just like if we eat a box of twinkies or sugar or junk before bed we get toxic dreams, so do animals. royal canin dog food only, its easily digested and is proven the most nutrient rich dogfood. other than that all i can say is animals dream, just like we do, and ya they can have nightmares, anything that has feelings can have dreams of those feelings. Because all animals feel love, hate, fear, terror, sadness, happiness ect. they have a possibility of dreaming about those feelings as well. However, more than likley its the food he's eating. change it.
www.royalcanin.com

An interesting development. Keep us updated on your dogs situation.

Since my sister and I live together, between us we have 4 dogs, 1 cat and a cockateil. Our dogs dream and do that feet twitching thing and they also whimper all the time when they sleep. But it does seem to me that your dog was a little affected by that incident. Maybe a visit would do him good. Also, it wouldn't hurt to change his diet like Siren suggested. Poor digestion also affects their sleep. I know that from my own dogs.

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I am sorry to hear about your mothers dog. When my dogs get a nightmare I just wake them up. A couple of times i let them drink tea or warm milk.

I do not feed my dog table food usually, sometimes as a treat he will get the bones to my meat, or I will give him some vegetables since they are good for him. But I don't give him junk food. He has his food and his treats. His nightmares had nothing to do with food, he has never cried like that before unless he had really injured himself.

I will tell you how he is tonight, I took him to see my mothers dog at the hospital today so he could see that he was okay. If he has nightmares like that tonight then I will contribute it to dogs having strange dreams but otherwise I will know for sure that he was aware that my mothers dog was deathly ill and he was afraid for him.

The reason I say he was afraid for my mothers dog is because he loves to play with him. My mothers dog is taller than me when he is standing on two legs, he is huge! but my dog is just 12" long lol and about 7" high. But my mothers large dog never would hurt him so he grew very close to him.

My mothers dog is okay now, they gave him five shots last night. He was throwing up blood all night last night but today he seemed okay. He will have to take medicine twice a day for a month. They will clean up all the poison left by the other person this weekend, until then he will have to be tied up around my mothers house.

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I dont believe dogs get nightmares from food. I think its stressful days. Maybe there was alot of deliveries or the grass cutters came. They are usually bothered by that. Halloween and the 4th of july. THose stressful times when they wonder why people are in our yard or house. I know my big dog must dream about my little dog taking his bone because a couple times he would wake up and then rebury his bone away from her LOL!.

Plus My dogs are perfectly healthy. Their vets love them and have mentioned that they are perfect. They have dry food thats down all the time and then at 2 points in the day they get boiled or baked chicken, sometimes is sauted liver, or Lamb. They also eat spaghetti and pizza at times. They get treats exspensive ones too! and love their dingo bones the best. We actually have a cubboard with just dog things. They take doggy vitamns and also at times drink gatorade. They have people treats only once in a while but we stay away from anything to sugar or chocolate since chocolate is posion.

The strange thing I am considering is that my dog had no stress at all that day, he got to visit with my mothers two dogs all day and then stayed home while I worked, which usually he does. So I am wondering if he can understand the gravity of my mothers dogs situation.

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Dogs can experience post tramatic stress like humans do. Read this article to find out more.