Now we have covered the basics of sleep, let’s look at the answers to the question “Why is my dog yelping in his sleep?”
Your Dog is Dreaming.
As we said earlier an average dog sleeps for twelve to fourteen hours a day with puppies and older dogs even sleeping more (sometimes up to twenty hours).
Also, their sleep cycle is similar to that of humans, so in the REM phase of their sleep, your dog may be yelping because he or she is dreaming in that instance. This dream state can be from five to ten minutes for puppies, twenty to thirty minutes for smaller dogs, and up to forty-five minutes for big dogs.
During the REM phase of sleep, a dog’s brain activity is usually at its peak. So, your dog may whimper, yelp, or even cry in its sleep. Now even though some dogs may move in an aggressive manner at this stage, it does not necessarily mean that your dog is having a nightmare.
We would harbor a guess that your dog may be dreaming of its normal daily activities in the house. It may be how they enjoyed playing with the new toy, or played fetch with you, or successfully defended the household against that intruder. You can see how easily their outward reactions to these kinds of dreams would seem aggressive.
All vet doctors seem to agree that a good dream or allowing your dog to have an uninterrupted REM phase of their sleep is very good for their mental stability. You can say it allows them to experience again in their own way the joys or pleasures they had during that period.
Even a scary dream is ok for them as it also allows them to make sense of troubling situations.
When your dog’s breathing becomes irregular and shallow, your dog twitching in sleep and its eyes move fast behind closed eyelids. You can assume he or she is in the dream state.
Your dog is having a Seizure.
How to tell if a dog is having a seizure while sleeping. One of the signs is a dog twitching and vocalizing while still in the sleep state. If the intensity at which a dog is yelping, twitching and vocalizing is very high. You are better off assuming that the dog is having a seizure.
Also if a dog is experiencing a seizure, the way it would kick and pad its legs would be more rigid and violent. Other signs would be the dog defecating and urinating when experiencing a seizure, drooling excessively, and finding it hard to breathe.
It is best to call the emergency number for your vet doctor at this moment for guidance on the next step of action.
Natural Behaviour in Puppies.
Puppies can be compared to human babies in a sense, human babies look at rest most times but can cry out at any moment for so many reasons which we don’t know, and even most of the ones we know seems irrelevant to us. But they cry nevertheless. The same logic can be applied when looking at young puppies, especially the newly born ones.
Puppies would yelp, whine, and whimper for no apparent reason, the yelping, whimpering, and whining is usually at their loudest when they get separated from their mothers and littermates. This will be very noticeable for at least a week or two.
This whining, whimpering, and yelping behavior is mainly borne out of the need to get attention and company. Puppies are also known to twitch more than their adult counterpart, so if your puppy seems to be twitchy while asleep, it is probably normal. You see at this stage of their life, their brain cells are still undergoing so the sending of signals to other parts of the body to be calm is still being worked out by their neural system. The brain would eventually get it right and the twitching will stop.
On your own part, just be patient and avoid trying to comfort your puppy too much as it will encourage them to still twitch, whine and yelp more and this is not what you want from your puppy, especially as they grow into young dogs.