Nightmare!?

So, I was just about to get up and pick up the boyfriend from work. Saxon and I were sitting on the couch (Saxon was asleep) and suddenly Saxon jumped awake and started shaking. He jumped of the couch and crawled/ran into the bedroom and hid in his crate shaking. I went over to try to coax him out with treats but he was so scared he wouldn't take them. I had to go get the boyfriend from work so I just closed his kennel door and left him to calm down. When the boyfriend and I got home, Saxon came out of his kennel all wiggle butt and started playing with the boyfriend. He completely ignored the fact that I was in the room even though I was calling him. After about 5 minutes of ignoring me, Saxon brought me his toy and started playing with me as if nothing happened. At the moment he is snoozing next to me.

My theory of the moment is he had a nightmare about me, but I have no idea what really happened here. So, what do you all think did happen?

It probabilly wasn't about you, but you were all that surrounded him scent/sight/sound at the time so he associated that bad experience with you and when you went after him it probabilly just overwhelmed him way too much. Next time don't go after him quite so urgently, give him a couple of minutes to realise where he is/ familar territory safety etc, Don't make a big fuss of it, if you want to check on him, simply do a sweep by his crate side ways glance and leave him too gather himself and call him a little later on.

Agree with the above. There have been a couple of occasions where Suki was having a nightmare and was growling extremly agressively. Scared me the first time since it was at night and she sleeps with us.

some nights Jethro goes bonkers in his sleep.. he sleeps next to our bed in his basket.. he has growled and yapped and all his paws move..he pulls faces...and yes on the odd occassion he has leapt out all bewildered and half asleep.

I always say he must have dreampt he was being chased by the dog catcher!!

My girls get nightmares too, he probably wasn't scared of you. But you know that moment when your between sleep and conciousness and you don't really know whats going on? We was probably right about there and just coming out of a nightmare so he ran away. Sometimes when they growl in their sleep they sound really mean, their hairs even stand up on their backs!

He's had dreams that made him twitch and whine and growl before, but this was so extreme. He was terrified! I really felt bad for him.