I've seen all those ads on TV for Restless Leg Syndrome (pins and needles feeling in the legs, or creepy crawlies, etc), and it finally hit me that maybe that's what Star (Dane) has!
She's done this for as long as we've had her (a year), but she will lay down for a while, be relatively still as if she's almost asleep, then suddenly jump up (completely up) with a start. She'll look at the bed/floor/carpet/whatever accusingly
, then go lay somewhere else. Sometimes it will happen again in the "new" spot, and she'll go back to the original spot. When it happens, she jumps up so quickly she will occasionally knock something over, which startles her more and she runs a few steps before looking back at the bed. If it happens in a quiet room, it startles everyone (Max, cats, kids, etc)
.
At first I thought it was something in the dog beds, but it happens whether they're freshly washed or old and stinky, and whether they've been shaken out recently or are all lumpy. Also it happens when the dogs themselves are freshly washed as well as old and stinky (but generally I don't shake the dogs out)
. No one is near her, so she's not being bumped or jostled as she's going to sleep.
Does anyone know if dogs can get RLS? Anyone else's dog behave similarly? I wonder if the benefits of the meds would outweigh the side effects
.
Thanks in advance!
Tracy