Is there anything better than crawling into bed at the end of a long day with your precious doggo?
Their little snores. Those little stretches. That slight… dog smell.
OK, I’ll be honest – it’s not always ideal.
My bed definitely contains far more dog hair than it should and I’m woken up at the crack of dawn more often than not.
But regardless of how much my Dachshund wiggles around and wakes me up at 6am to go outside, there’s just something so calming about sharing a bed with him.
It’s a practice I highly recommend – and it turns out science does too.
According to a new study published by researchers at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, sleeping with your dog in the bed is actually pretty damn good for you.
In the study released earlier this month, researchers surveyed 962 women living in the United States about their sleeping habits.
57 per cent of the women surveyed slept with another human, while 31 per cent slept with a cat and 55 per cent slept with a dog.
But here’s where things get interesting. According to the study, women who slept with a dog compared to a human or a cat were more likely to have a restful night.
Yep, sleeping with dog provides a more restful experience than sleeping with a human does.
“Compared with human bed partners, dogs who slept in the owner’s bed were perceived to disturb sleep less and were associated with stronger feelings of comfort and security,” the study said.
This is why we love dogs so much. Post continues below.
The study also found that women who slept with their dogs were more likely to go to bed earlier and get up earlier.
But there’s bad news for cat lovers.
“Conversely, cats who slept in their owner’s bed were reported to be equally as disruptive as human partners, and were associated with weaker feelings of comfort and security than both human and dog bed partners,” the study said.
The benefits of sharing a bed with a dog extends to both women and men.
According to research published by Mayo Clinic in Arizona last year, a study of 40 healthy adults found that people who slept with a dog in the bedroom got more sleep than people who didn’t.
Well, there you go – you have permission from science to keep sleeping with your furry friend.
You’re welcome.
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Top Comments
I share my bed with two large dogs and a parrot(the parrot sleeps on the bedhead). I am woken every morning to the refrain "hello chicken" while a large beak is stuck up my nose(strangely usually my left nostril).
Neither my wife nor I likes dogs, for numerous reasons. We are both totally cat people, and we STRONGLY disagree with what this article said about sleeping with your cats being disruptive! We are owned by a pair of very loyal, amusing, and well behaved Ocicats. Our older girl Saphira is my profile pic, and the first pic below is how I woke up to find our little girl Viola one chilly November morning. The second is Saphira curled up in bed with my wife just a couple of days after joining us at Christmas in 2011.
Both have always slept in bed with us every night, we find their presence comforting and would miss them if they were not there. The only way they interfere with sleep in any way is that they sometimes crowd us a bit and make it hard to move around, just not a big problem for us. Nowhere near as unpleasant as sharing a bed with a 75 pound smelly farting DOG! Their sleeping habits are great, go to bed when we do and wake up when we do. They NEVER wake us up in the morning, no 5:30 wake up calls for feeding that some cat servants face.
Oh, and like all cats (and unlike dogs), they are self cleaning and DON'T STINK!
As I mentioned, they are very well behaved, rarely jump on kitchen counters or scratch furniture, perfect about using their litter box, very rarely naughty in any way. They are just absolute joys, and totally brighten our lives every day (and night!).
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