Heidi is acting really weird at night

[Karin]

Heidi has been acting really strange late at night during the past week. Between around 1AM and 5AM, she starts getting really nervous. She'll jump up on the bed like she wants to go out. Then, I'll take her out and she'll just walk around (sometimes peeing and pooping, but not always).

Last night was the worst though. At 3AM, she woke us up by jumping on the bed. We normally don't let her on the bed, but we did tonight because we thought maybe we'd get some sleep if she was up there with us. She couldn't relax though and kept staring at us, acting like she was listening for something, and then she sniffed both of our faces and jumped off the bed.

From that point on, she's been really restless, roaming the house, whining, staring. My husband has to get up for work in the morning, so I went in the other room so he could get some sleep (she normally follows me everywhere).

But she is still nervous, wandering around the house, and I found her in the bathroom twice just staring at the toilet! And she rarely goes into the bathroom because she is nervous walking on the linoleum. Three and a half hours later (at 6:30 AM), she's still pacing, whining, staring at me and hitting me with her nose.

I did a search on the forum and found two other threads where Heidi was acting weird. Both times, it lasted a couple of days and then stopped. This time, it's worse and what's weird is that she seems her normal self during the daytime but in the late hours, she turns into a nervous wreck!

At first I was wondering if something was wrong with her physically, but it seems more like something is scaring her.

Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong with her and any suggestions to get her to calm down and let us get some sleep? This is getting to be a real pain!

[Lilie]

This only happens at night? Never during the day time?

[Stella's Mom]

Is it possible that your house is haunted?

[Freestep]

Seriously--a few years ago, there was a period of several weeks where Luka was acting really anxious when she was outside. She was fine when inside, but when outside she'd whine, pace, jump on the door to get back in... we even took her to the vet because the behavior was so unusual.

After a few weeks of this, my shop caught fire. They couldn't figure out what caused it, but ruling out everything else, they figured it had to be a short inside the wall. It could have been smoldering for days or even weeks and we never could have known.

The interesting thing was... after the shop burned down, Luka's behavior went back to normal.

So, you never know. Dogs can sense things we can't.

[GSKnight]

my first thought was "critters" of some sort.

[Stella's Mom]

Originally Posted by Freestep

Seriously--a few years ago, there was a period of several weeks where Luka was acting really anxious when she was outside. She was fine when inside, but when outside she'd whine, pace, jump on the door to get back in... we even took her to the vet because the behavior was so unusual.

After a few weeks of this, my shop caught fire. They couldn't figure out what caused it, but ruling out everything else, they figured it had to be a short inside the wall. It could have been smoldering for days or even weeks and we never could have known.

The interesting thing was... after the shop burned down, Luka's behavior went back to normal.

So, you never know. Dogs can sense things we can't.

Your dog was probably smelling something was off, or maybe a change in the electric charge. Amazing story.

[msvette2u]

There could be mice in the walls or something. Something is wrong in the house.

Two of our dogs flipped out completely in the middle of the night when the smoke detector's batteries got low and started with that "chirping" noise they make.
Dogs cannot stand random noises. That is, if a noise was occurring at regular intervals, it'd be one thing but random noises freak them out. I guess in our case, the smoke detector was doing something random and new, and the dogs just couldn't tolerate it.

Is your toilet working okay or is the seal allowing water to seep out and then do the fill-back-up thing like a half-flush?

[nitemares]

My guess would be critters, or something wrong with house.
On the other hand I wouldn't rule out upset stomachs. My previous GSD Juvi used to pace and whine for hours if she had gas or some sort of indigestion.

[Karin]

Originally Posted by Lilie

This only happens at night? Never during the day time?

In the past, she's done this during the day, but this time it's only been in the wee hours of the night. And it doesn't happen every night. The night before last, she laid down on her pad when we all went to bed and stayed there all night!

And now she's totally back to normal again. She's outside looking for squirrels!

[Twyla]

Dogs can also react to storms, earthquakes etc. You are in the Bay area, has there been more tremors then usual or stronger?