I work for a veterinary organization so one of my big benefits is bouncing questions of “what is wrong with my animal” off the different techs and vets I see every day. I also get to bring said animal to work with me so he is well known around these parts. Which leads us to last week.

Since I got Fin the Dog, he’s been nearly perfectly housetrained. His other manners and skills may lack, but he’s been awesome about telling you he needs to go out from the day he learned where the door was. Last week, I kept noticing Fin the Dog was waking me up in the middle of the night multiple times – like 2, 3, 4 times. He sleeps with me (well, he sleeps in the middle of the queen bed and I am left to whatever remains) and while I’m a relatively deep sleeper, the motion of a 24lb dog LEAPING off the bed is enough to rouse me from whatever bizarre dream I’m in the midst of at that time. Naturally, seeing him standing at the door asking to go out had me up and taking him outside every time.

After a few nights of this, I finally l̶o̶w̶ ̶l̶e̶v̶e̶l̶ ̶p̶a̶n̶i̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ chatted with one of the veterinarians at work and we decided to run some basic blood work, urinalysis, etc. to see what was going on. Because obviously I’m sitting here going, “My dog has a UTI. My dog has diabetes. My dog has cancer. My dog has a rare disease that is going to cost thousands of dollars to fix.”

I do not jump to worst case scenarios ever, why do you ask?

And… everything came back normal. Couple hundred dollars of testing to find out my dog is perfectly n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶ healthy. Awesome. Fantastic.

But why can’t I get like, four hours of uninterrupted sleep here?

We were all puzzled, figuring it must be behavioral of some sort. Until last Thursday.

I was reading before bed and up later than normal since I was into my book, Fin asleep next to me in bed. He’s always been an active dreamer, chasing things and moving in his sleep, so that didn’t surprise me. What happened next though…

He barked in his sleep (quietly, enough that with the fan on and the nine pillows I sleep with, I wouldn’t have heard it if I was asleep) and woke himself up convinced there was a dog outside. LEPT off the bed, ran to the door and sat there asking to go out. To chase the dream dog that does not exist.

Which is the story of how I puzzled everyone at my office, spent money on perfectly normal testing and worried myself, all because my dumb dog barks in his sleep.