"Sleep-barking"

I’m sure most people have heard of the phenomenon of sleep-walking. It is classified as a sleep disorder that causes the afflicted to engage in various behaviours while still asleep. Sleepwalking episodes can last from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.

A quick search on Google reveals that the question of whether animals/dogs sleepwalk as well remains quite a debatable topic.

Well, we believe Dante sleep-walks. Or, to be more specific, he “sleep-barks”.

Interestingly enough, this is something that has started only fairly recently.

For the past 2-3 months, once or twice a week during the night, Dante will suddenly rouse himself from a deep sleep in his bed, run up to the window to fire off a few short, loud barks, and then immediately run back to his bed, circle and flop back down into a seemingly instant deep sleep again.

When this happens, there is a nuanced but noticeable (to people who know Dante well and have spent a lot of time in person with him, that is) difference in Dante’s body language and behaviour. His movements appear mechanical. His body is stiff. He does not respond to our calls or commands, it’s like he doesn’t even hear us. His usually very expressive face appears somewhat wooden and glazed-over.

So far, it has been always the same basic sequence of actions: Leap out of bed. Run to window. Bark a few times. Run back to bed. Plop back down on bed and resume sleeping.

The first few times that it happened we were really puzzled by the odd behaviour, especially when Dante appeared to be completely non-responsive. Besides, it’s quite unpleasant to be suddenly jolted awake by barking that sounds like an ear-splitting foghorn. Once we recognized that there was a pattern to it, we were still a little concerned but less likely to feel the urge to jump out of bed and scan the house for dangers.

Last night was a classic example of Dante “sleep-barking”. The Fred and I were snuggled up watching a movie. Suddenly, we heard that familiar rustling of Dante’s bed. Sure enough, mere seconds later we saw Dante run up to the window, let out a few quick, loud barks, and then immediately spin around and curl back up in bed again. This all transpired within about 30 seconds.

I’m not quite sure what triggered this sudden spate of regular “sleep-barking” behaviour. In fact, if I haven’t been witnessing it with my own eyes, then I would still be quite the skeptic in believing that animals/dogs actually do sleepwalk ... but, that seems to be the only logical explanation.

I’m wondering what would happen, if when Dante is in the middle of “sleep-barking”, I physically prevent him from going up to the window or get him to come to my side? Would wake up and get very confused? Or would he continue on carrying out some kind of deeply subconscious “pre-programmed” set of behaviours? Hmmm ...