Where Does Your Dog Sleep At Night? In Your Bed? In A Crate?
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Where does your dog sleep at night? In your bedroom? In your bed? In a crate?
If you’re bringing home a puppy for the first time we highly recommend crate training and teaching your puppy to sleep in his crate at night.
What about your well behaved, well trained older dog?
Should he be allowed to sleep on your bed at night? It’s a personal choice and as long as everyone in bed is comfortable and safe then by all means allow your dog to sleep with you.
There are definitely pros and cons to allowing your dog to sleep in your bed and in our house the pros outweigh the cons as we allow our two elder dogs to sleep in bed with us at night.
Where Our Dogs Sleep At Night
We just got back from vacation (actually it was our honeymoon) and one thing my wife and I noticed was no matter how tired we were we both had trouble sleeping at night.
It’s true we slept in a wide range of beds from a regular queen sized bed to a murphy bed to a pull out and maybe this was a big reason why we had some issues with our sleep.
On the flight home from Colorado we both conclusively decided that the main reason for our restless nights was that we did not have a dog(s) sleeping in the bed with us.
I guess we missed the dog fur, stealing of the blankets, hogging the bed, snoring (Stetson snores louder then anyone I’ve heard), etc that comes with having a dog cuddled up against you at night.
Raven & Archer
So where do our dogs sleep at night? For starters, all of our puppies in training start by getting crate trained and will sleep at night in the crate.
After our puppies in training master the crate, potty training, and display good house manners they are given the opportunity to sleep anywhere in our bedroom except in the bed.
Raven and Archer have both graduated from sleeping in closed crates, but even with the opportunity to sleep outside the crate I often find them sleeping in their crates.
Linus & Stetson
However, our pet dogs are a different story. Linus is allowed to sleep on the bed and he has made the large king-sized pillow his own.
He will usually start the night sleeping above our heads, but often times I wake up and Linus has taken residence in his crate for the majority of the night and morning.
Stetson is our original Puppy In Training raised to be a guide dog and career changed to mentor future guide and service puppies. Stetson was trained not to be on furniture including the bed all the way until he was career changed and transitioned from a working dog to a pet.
Now that we’ve allowed him to be in the bed Stetson absolutely loves the bed! LOVES IT!!!
Where Does Your Dog Sleep At Night?
Dogs are social animals and so are people so it’s no wonder many of us like to allow our dog to sleep in our beds at night.
Here are a few pros and cons we thought of for allowing your dog to sleep in your bed.
Pros
- There’s nothing like cuddling up with man’s best friend. Linus from time to time will cuddle into my armpit 🙂
- Your dog can be like a built in heated blanket. Stetson makes for a great leg warmer!
- Dogs make for great alarm clocks. Stetson knows his exact meal time and starts jumping up and down on the bed.
- Your dog is less likely to be stressed. I’m pretty sure having my two buddies, Stetson and Linus in bed reduces my stress level as well.
Cons
- You will likely eat more fur then your Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). Linus blows out his coat twice a year…not a fun time 🙁
- You might not have the greatest smelling bed. I’m resigned to the fact I and all my belongings will always smell like dog.
- You will have to clean the sheets more often. Well, not necessarily if you don’t mind points 1 and 2…
- Sometimes dog’s snore. Stetson and Ali battle it out for who can snore louder.
- Some dogs like to sprawl across the bed and steal the covers. Stetson will sometimes sleep diagonal.
3 Reasons Why We Would Not Allow Our Dog To Sleep In The Bed
- Your Dog Is Not Housetrained. It’s an accident waiting to happen. Your dog will likely not alert you when he has to pee/poop and either A. Jump down from the bed and have an accident on the carpet or B. Even worse sneak off to the corner of the bed to do his business.
- Your Dog Does Not Have Good House Manners. If your dog still have behaviors you don’t want him practicing while you cannot supervise him then a crate is more suitable when it’s time for bed. After all you don’t want to wake up and find that your dog chewed up your favorite Christian Louboutin heels.
- Your Dog Shows Aggression When In Bed. You don’t want your aggressive dog to bite, nip, or attack anyone. If your dog is showing guarding aggression it might be a good time to hire a professional dog trainer to work with you and your dog.
It’s time to hear from you guys.
How many of you allow your dog to sleep in your bed at night?
Tell us your pros and cons for allowing your dog to sleep in your bed.
Leave us a comment in the section below.
Speak soon!
Colby
Related Article
- My Dog Hates Her Crate! Are There Alternatives To Crate Training?
- When To Stop Crate Training Your Puppy
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I got my adult rescue, Spectre, and intended to crate train him, but I slept downstairs on the couch outside the crate in case there were any issues. The first night, he was absolutely angelic and perfectly quiet and slept well…. The second night, he cried and I thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I let him sleep on the couch with me, just so he felt better. Same thing the 3rd night and after that I thought, “Why the hell are we all sleeping on the couch, this is stupid?!” And he’s slept in bed with zero problems ever since…. Once I adopted my puppy, Jabberwocky, I didn’t even bother trying to nighttime crate train him. He just sleeps on the bed (thankfully no accidents) through the night and gets crated for potty training during the daytime while I’m at work. I’m a softie!
Our two boxers sleep in bed with us. Both were crate trained and quickly caught on. Stella started sleeping with us when she was two years old. When we got Dasher, Stella was four. We started him out in the bed with us. We put his travel crate in-between us so he was close for outside business during the night. He is also crate trained for times we’re not home. Two spoiled rotten bed hogs who snore and fart is the best way to sleep!
Stetson likes to sprawl too and I will sometimes wake up trapped in the corner of our King Sized bed. Another thing he does is kick in his sleep. He’s been known to give sharp kicks to the chest while we’re in mid-sleep (actually Ali is the lucky one who’s gotten the kick to the chest…twice).
Laika gets the couch all to herself at night. I tried letting her sleep in my bed a few times but she sprawls out way too much, and then I’m left in that awkward position of not wanting to wake her up… Oh and she howls in her sleep a couple times a week, that’s sort of a deal breaker.
We’ve been kicked many times in the middle of the night. Linus does the running motion and Stetson will do a Kung Fu kick in the middle of sleep. Stetson hogs the bed and sheets, sheds his coat year round, and the aforementioned Kung Fu kicks yet I can’t imagine sleeping without him and Linus.
Raven and Archer both willingly go to their crates (we keep them open now that they’re both potty and crate trained) in the middle of the night.
Fun topic! I don’t think that I’d get a wink of sleep having our puppy in our bedroom. He snores, sleep barks (which makes me jump), and makes running motions with his feet in his sleep. He has a good bedtime routine and will willingly head to his crate when he’s ready to bed down, although I feel still feel guilty putting him in a crate.
I’m glad you were able to work through your dog’s aggression issues. As I mentioned we have trouble sleeping at night without the dogs.
Awww…she gets the royal treatment!
When we first got our dog he did exhibit aggression on the bed; mostly guarding my husband. I think it took almost a year before he was well-mannered enough for me to feel comfortable allowing him in bed with us. It was something very important to my husband; having the dog sleep with us, and now that we’ve done it for a couple years I see he was SO right. I love having the dog cuddling with us and it’s twice as sweet after all the work we put into his training, like this is our reward. I can’t wait for our new puppy to get old enough to be trusted all night loose so we can cuddle.
Our pet dogs have always slept in the bed at night! Sometimes in their dog bed that’s on the human bed. My dad even tucks his dog in at night. 🙂 Great article!