It’s one of the great dilemmas of dog owners: let them climb into bed to sleep with us or not? But be careful: here we are not talking about the (excellent) hygienic reasons why it is inadvisable to share sheets with a dog.
The study published on PLOS One which we are talking about focuses on another controversial aspect of sleeping with dogs: the fact that, even when they are asleep, they are anything but still and silent. So, does putting your dog in bed ruin your sleep? The study conducted by two Canadian universities, surprisingly, suggests not.
Who wakes up who?
As always when talking about studies on pets, it is worth noting the size of the sample analyzed before generalizing the results too much. The team from the universities of Toronto and Mississauga involved 25 humans and their 38 dogs (don’t ask us how distributed) in the study and monitored them for a period of one month, using the classic activity monitor wrist (or collar, in the case of dogs) that measure the quality of sleep and track the wearer’s nocturnal movements.
The results obtained in this way overturn at least in part what we thought about the nocturnal relationship between humans and dogs. First of all, it is not true that the latter disturb sleep: even when the humans reported some form of discomfort the next morning, their wrist monitor on the contrary showed a more or less regular sleep. “More or less” because it is true that, in many cases, the instruments have detected some form of nocturnal activity; but in most of these cases, humans were the first to move, disturbing the dogs’ sleep, and not vice versa.
So, do they disturb us or not?
This obviously does not mean that dogs are silent angels and we are always the ones who disturb them; however, the study reduces the impact that dogs have on our sleep, and on the contrary shows that we humans know how to be annoying. However, the authors themselves point out that the study was conducted on a limited sample, and without the use of a control group (i.e. humans who slept without dogs): as always in these cases, the study concludes by stating that there will be a need for other studies to better understand the issue.
The fact remains that, however partial, these results seem to contradict other previous studies on the subject, for example this one from 2024 which claims that sleeping with dogs ruins sleep (while cats do not cause problems).
On the other hand, the fact that the issue is controversial is demonstrated by the presence of studies to the contrary, for example this one released this year which claims that, at least in adults, sleeping with dogs is good for mental health. In short: at the moment we don’t have a definitive answer, so you decide whether to let your dog get on the bed or let him sleep in his kennel.
