Where does your dog sleep?
Gus sleeps in a variety of places as he wants – in his dog bed, on the carpet in my study, or on the sofa. All these are downstairs. He doesn’t come upstairs very often – only when there are scary noises such as thunder, when we are woken by him crashing open the bedroom door. (Then we have problems getting him back downstairs again, but that’s another story.)
Cali sleep in her crate next to Catherine’s bed in her downstairs bedroom.
Tippi sleeps in bed with Gareth. Yes, actually in the bed. Or on it, when it’s hot.
Last year there was a fascinating study looking at this. The researchers looked at where pet dogs slept and rated the quality of their owners’ sleep. The results showed that when the dogs slept in the bedroom, owners had the best quality sleep.
However, when dogs slept on or in the bed, the quality of human sleep was lower – note to Gareth!
That study gave some support to dogs being allowed to sleep in bedrooms, but the truth is, it is your choice. There are no rules – it’s whatever suits you. Perhaps you let your dog choose to sleep where ever they are comfortable, or perhaps you decided on their sleeping place early on and have stuck to it.
With all our previous dogs when they were puppies, we started off with them sleeping in a crate downstairs. Crates are a very useful tool in housetraining and indeed all our dogs have been dry and clean at night from very early on. We stopped shutting them in the crate once they were around six months to a year old. Our first dog, Ben, tried to sleep on the sofa, but we persuaded him that was not a good idea as we did not want dogs on the furniture then.
Then when we got Bill, both dogs came to sleep in our bedroom. We lived in a bungalow at that time, so it suited all of us. Ben used to crawl under the bed each night and every morning we’d have to pull him out again because he would get stuck. When we moved to a two storey house, the dogs both slept downstairs. We still didn’t allow them on the furniture, however, in his later years, Ben chose comfort – we’d hear the thump of him jumping off as we came downstairs and there was a suspicious warm spot on the sofa. Bill had his own spot in the corner of the room.
Bryn slept with Bill at first, but when Bill died, Bryn chose to come upstairs and slept in the corner of our bedroom. Mack slept, and now Gus sleeps, downstairs.
It’s your choice.
My advice for young puppies, is to allow them to sleep in your bedroom at first. It’s hard enough for your puppy on those first few nights being torn away from the comfort of snuggling up with their siblings, and being left on their own can be highly upsetting. It’s no wonder so many puppies cry at night. You want to make your puppy feel safe and secure in their new home, so I advise allowing your puppy to sleep in the bedroom, preferably in a box by your bed, at first. It’s simple to move them to a crate then gradually to the place you want them to sleep over the following weeks.
This is the advice I give in my new book, “Please May I Have A Puppy?” The book is aimed at children aged approximately 7 to 14 and describes how to find a suitable puppy and what you need to do to teach them to become the perfect pet. I am particularly proud of this book because I’ve also illustrated it. It is the end product of my 15 month long cartoon course which finished in early November. It would make a great Christmas present for any dog loving children and you can find paperback or Kindle versions here: https://amzn.to/3q6j8O5
I’m curious to know where your dog sleeps – let me know!
Keep training and stay safe,
Carol