Mutts Life

It seems to be fairly widely accepted in the scientific community that dogs do indeed dream.  And if that’s the case – what’s Fido actually dreaming about when he (or she) is flapping and yipping about on the living room floor?

The similarities between people and dogs are large* (greater than our differences anyway) and most scientists agree that dogs experience the same two kinds of sleep that we do – namely REM (rapid eye movement) and SWS (slow wave sleep).  REM’s the deep sleep with heightened brain activity (as measured both in humans and dogs) and from which woken humans tend to claim that they were dreaming just prior to being disturbed.  Dogs who have been woken from REM sleep have expressed a similar emotion – namely “Grrrrrrr”.

But what are they actually dreaming about?  Here are my predictions…

1. Impressing the pack by being able to hit the fire hydrant from 5 metres.
2. A life as the hood ornament on a fast car.
3. Attaching all cats to short lengths of bungee cord.
4. Sniffing the backside of that Beagle up the road.
5. Sniffing the backside of that Labrador down the road.
6. Eating his way out of a large vat of well “matured” rubbish.
7. Coating himself liberally with a substance that is
   1. Unknown to man and
   2. Exquisitely soft, slimy and smelly.
8. Chewing on an unfeasibly large bone.
9. Chasing off all comers with a “sonic” bark.
10. Dozing in the living room with his pack after a hard days work.

* A great book on the emotional lives of dogs that covers some of the similarities between man and dog is Patricia McConnells, “For the Love of a Dog”.

(Just another note in case this is misleading – McConnells book is about humans, dogs, their emotions and fostering a better understanding between the two. It is not a book about dogs and their dreams. That would probably be quite brief.  Like this post).