Is it right to take pets to sleep in your bed

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Does your pet often want to take a place of honor on the bed next to you? Great, but remember that the coin has two sides. You will learn about the pros and cons of sleeping together with your pet in this article.

One night in 1998, my wife and I fell asleep and forgot to put our puppy Maggio (our first dog) on his bed, so he quietly fell asleep between us on the bed.

When we woke up the next morning and found that there were no catastrophic consequences, a wonderful thought came into our heads: “Mmm. The dog sleeps on the bed. Comfortably settled down next to people. Not bad. Perhaps in some way it's even good."

Nobody knows exactly how many people let their pets sleep in the same bed with them. But two studies presented last year at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies confirmed that any animal lover like me can tell you, "There are a lot of us, and we walk around like zombies."

During the first study, 298 people were interviewed. About half of them took pets (more often dogs than cats) to sleep in their beds. A third of those surveyed reported that their pets wake them up once a night (at least). 63% of respondents who shared a bed with their pet more than four nights a week noted that they noticed a sharp deterioration. Another study found that 10% of pet owners feel annoyed when their pets interrupt their sleep. Of course, I am not an expert, but this figure (10%) seems insignificant to me.

I recently had my annual check-up and my doctor asked me if I was sleeping well. I told him that it was not very good. I had a suspicion that my dogs were playing a role in this. "Do you and your wife allow the dog to sleep in the same bed with you?" the doctor asked. “Yes,” I replied. "What breed is your dog?" the doctor continued asking. I replied that the Labradors. And as soon as I said that, I immediately realized how ridiculous it sounded.

The doctor blinked for 40 seconds, and then incredulously said: “Labradors? LABRADORS? Is that right, in the plural? “Yes,” I replied in a quiet and meek voice, dreaming of sinking into the ground.

Yes, now I have two Labradors. One - his name is Scout - is 11 years old and weighs 27 kilograms. The second favorite, named Roxy, is four years old and weighs 25 kilograms.

Roxy and Scout are not too big for Labradors, but they have an eternal desire to get a good sleep, and they do not mind taking up more than half of our bed.

Dogs love to lie down right in the middle of our huge bed, while my wife Jennifer and I often have to huddle around the edges.

I know that this is not good for me. Experts at Harvard Medical School say that lack of adequate sleep has an extremely negative effect on our mood, decision-making ability, cognitive abilities, the ability to absorb and remember information, and also increases the risk of an accident or injury.

Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to a range of serious health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even premature death.

And yet, night after night, my wife and I - two adults who train their dogs and treat them quite strictly, persistently call them to order - we cannot stoop to chase the dogs out of bed, and wake up grumpy in the morning and feel cruel.

I decided to talk about this topic with my friends and acquaintances. One of my friends has a 38 kilogram coonhound who loves to sleep with him in the same bed. As the owner of the dog notes, he is uncomfortable with this. He tries to teach the pet to sleep in a different place, but so far to no avail. Another friend of mine says that recently, when her two-year-old Great Dane jumped onto the bed at two in the morning, she tried to come to terms with it for about an hour, and then went to sleep on the sofa.

I believe (without a shadow of disrespect for our smaller brothers) that dogs are great manipulators. Or maybe they, like people, want simple comfort. And it is understandable why they prefer the bed to the floor and even to the luxurious and expensive dog bed.

You should also not discount the comfort and joy that you experience curling up next to a sleeping dog or cat. In addition, it is warmer with pets, their body temperature is several degrees higher than ours.

Psychologist Stanley Coren refers to the thoughts of anthropologists who believe that the desire of a person and / or pet to share the same bed for two may not be just a whim on the part of you or your pet - the roots of this behavior.

And, frankly, it's already hard for me to give up the elementary comfort that I experience when I hear Roxy's muffled snoring or the quiet snoring of Scout, under which I fall asleep in peace. I associate these sounds with the end of the day, home and safety. Often around three o'clock in the morning I feel that the dogs have taken up too much space. Instinctively, I can try to shove them off, but I do it so weakly that the dogs do not even wake up, and I, as usual, move to the edge of the bed. Night after night.