Do your dogs sleep in your bed with you?

Some friends and I got into a conversation about this and I started wondering how many people let their dogs sleep in bed with them?

We have two dogs in bed with us. A Yellow Lab and a Bernese mountain dog! Good thing we have a kind size bed. They both happily jump up on the bed when they see us going to bed at night.

One dog will move over if you ask him, the Lab. Now the Bernese mountain dog forget it. He looks at you with his big old eyes as if to say he is much to tired to do any moving. And if you try to move him he suddenly becomes this floppy dog with no backbone! He is about 120 pounds so moving him is a big deal. He becomes jello dog! And, I really think he races to the bed to get his spot first!

After this conversation I wondered how many people have their dogs in bed with them.

Do you have your dogs in bed with you? And how many are in the bed?

My doggies have passed on (last year and the year before), but yes they both slept with me and I miss them dearly in bed with me. One slept cuddled up close to me right by my stomach.....he liked that and would dive under the covers when I got in bed. My other one slept on the bed at the foot, guarding me. They were both small...a Chipin and a Poodle who lived very long lives (17 and 19).

In the past, I did have a big Shepherd who slept with me but I had a king sized bed and he stayed on his side.

I saw a headline not long ago saying it might not be healthy to sleep with pets....it surely wouldn't be if they have fleas and ticks. There may be some other reasons too but to be honest, I only read the headline. I think I just didn't want to know what the article said.

My little chihuahua girl would love's to sleep under the covers at my feet and I enjoy the little foot warmer but my husband has put his foot down and banished her to sleep with all the other dogs in the laundry. On the rare occasions he is away she get's to sneak in with me though

My dog sleeps in my bed or in my room on his dog bed if hes not on my bed.

We never let our dog sleep in our bed. He had his own doggy bed in the livingroom, which he used most of the time, unless.......the chair called his name. lol

We often caught him sneaking off the big recliner in the morning where he had slept through the night. He would normally hear us getting up and get off the chair and back in his bed before being seen.

However, as he got older his hearing was not so good, and he would be discovered fast asleep in the big chair.

I never wanted to have the dog hair or chance of fleas, on my bed sheets and blankets and furniture.

And so as a young puppy, he was trained to stay off the furniture.

Our dogs never sleep with us. They are happy enough sleeping on the floor beside the bed. They have great big pillows there that they lie on. We have chow chows and they are as stubburn as they come. When they were young I was concerned that they would be too rough on my youngest son as he was still small. They have a tendency to dominate areas in the house, the sofa, the bed etc. We researched a lot but could not get it resolved. We then watched Cesar Milan that you needed to exercise, play with your dogs and be firm with them about boundaries. You needed to be calm assertive and consistent with rules. This helped us a lot in all areas including not having them dominate the bed or the sofas in the house.

We have a big black lab, and yes he sleeps in bed with us. Nashley has got to be in the 80 to 100 lbs. range. My family truly considers Nash one of the family. So it is really not a big deal to us when Nash gets on the furniture or beds. There is only one time when I get annoyed with him. After I am up for the day I always make my bed and put all my little decorative pillows on top. Nine times out of ten at some point Nashley will go in my bedroom. He will pull off the pillows and pull back the comforter and get in bed. When I go to my room and catch him. I do not have to say a word he looks at me and takes off runnng. Leaving my bed in total dissaray. This is almost like our daily game we play.

I have never had a dog in bed with me, under the covers, but my labrador, who slept in his own basket, would love to jump on my bed in the morning for a bit of a lie-in. If I was in bed at the time there would not be a lot of space left for me. I would not have liked the dog to sleep overnight as I don't think I would have had much sleep. Sometimes he used to bark, snarl or growl in his dreams. Also when sleeping on his side and dreaming of a chase his legs would be 'running'.

They don't sleep in my bed because I shut the door, but one of my dogs sleeps in my mothers bed, but not under the covers. The other one doesn't do it because he can't go up the stairs to the bedrooms, but he sleeps in the sofa instead. I don't really like the idea of them sleeping on the sofa, but they only go there when everybody is asleep and I can't shut them in the kitchen because they will scratch the door, and don't like leaving them outside in the cold.

I thought this was a great question to ask! I have wondered about that myself. I have two dogs a black lab and a rotty. The lab slept in my bed since the day I got him about 7 years ago up until I moved in with my boyfriend a year ago. My boyfriend is a big guy, and so is Buster, the lab... even though we have a california king bed, there isn't room for the both of them. The rotty never slept in the bed. She has gotten up there a few times, but has gas too often! lol One thing that used to be nice was that my lab was very polite in the bed - like yours, he would scoot over if I woke him up and told him to.

For us it was mostly the our dogs' choice if they wanted to or not. One of them loved sleeping in the bed with us and another one preferred to sleep in her own bed. The one who liked her own bed was rather larger and had a thicker coat so I think she found sleeping in a bed with others just too warm probably. We had one other dog who used to sleep in the bed with us too. When he was alive, the larger one would also come to bed with us. After he died, she stopped doing that. We think she only came to our bed because of the other dog. The smaller one has a much thinner coat and really loved being extra warm so she always slept in our bed even if we were not there. She always went under the blankets and sometimes it was hard to know where she was! The only times she ever slept outside the bed would be when she was waiting next to the kitchen for food or if she went to sleep next to a heater. When she was in bed, she sometimes went to sleep on my head for some reason. I think she liked to be on the pillows.

I do not let my dog sleep with me in bed. I have learned that we can get some disease like worms being transferred into our body. I have asthma too so his fur might cause me irritation. I know some of my friends allow their pets like dogs and cats to sleep with them.

My parents let all three of our little dogs sleep with them at night. Since they are small they do not take up much of the bed and they never have any problems with pee on the bed or making noise at night. Our larger dog sleeps on the floor or the couch.

Since my parents' bed is so tall the little dogs have trouble getting on or off, so I suppose that avoids them jumping off and on whenever they want to. My parents also don't force the dogs to sleep with them, the dogs like sleeping together on the bed. The three of them tend to huddle on near the end of the bed by my parents' feet.

The only complaint about this that I have heard is when one of the dogs starts to snore, but it doesn't happen very often.

I've heard people say they're absolutely appalled by letting dogs in the bed or even on the couch. I guess it depends on what kind of dog you have, and what your preference is. I don't know how people do it with big dogs crowding up the bed. And I would hate to be on the couch and not have my dog sit with me. But my dog is a mostly indoor dog, she's small, clean, and doesn't shed so I don't mind it. She's slept in my bed since she was a puppy and I think it'd break her heart if I kicked her out of the bed now anyway. She's always been good about sleeping though, she never wakes me up and conforms to however I'm laying, so I don't mind it at all.

Back home in Nepal, my dogs just loved sitting on couches and sleeping with us on the bed. The older of the two dogs even loved taking showers and was just like a cat such that it would lick itself constantly to keep itself clean. Whenever my parents go to bed, the dogs would quickly rush up to the bedroom to reserve their spots. I guess it helped that both parents were brought up on farms where they had many pets and did not mind it at all. Most people are disgusted by the fact that the dogs sleep with us but I think it's all dependent on the individuals.

(05-26-2013, 07:14 AM)jules0309 Wrote: The older of the two dogs even loved taking showers

Wait wait, what? Are you saying the dog would jump in the shower with you? That's unbelievable, that's a hilarious visual though.

Once upon a time, I let my pups sleep in my bed with me... but then I got a third, and there is no way all three of them will fit up there with us. Of course I couldn't play favorites, so they're all stuck sleeping in a raised bed which is right next to mine, now. They're only about six inches below the edge of my bed, so they hardly know the difference.

(05-27-2013, 02:13 AM)cliverederson Wrote: Wait wait, what? Are you saying the dog would jump in the shower with you? That's unbelievable, that's a hilarious visual though.

Haha...I meant she( her name is Jenni) would happily go into the shower when we bathe them. My other dog,Tyson absolutely hated it and we had to put a leash on him while making him take a bath. His whining never made it any easier and he's a big dog too so he is a very loud dog.

I was imaging someone peacefully taking a shower and a big dog bursting in. You're lucky though, mine hates getting baths. Although, she's small so there isn't a whole lot she can do about it!

(05-28-2013, 04:37 AM)jules0309 Wrote: Haha...I meant she( her name is Jenni) would happily go into the shower when we bathe them. My other dog,Tyson absolutely hated it and we had to put a leash on him while making him take a bath. His whining never made it any easier and he's a big dog too so he is a very loud dog.

Believe it or not, I actually know someone whose German Shepard does this. They had to add a new lock to the door because the old one was loose enough for him to figure out. If he could open it, he would, and when he did, he would push the shower curtain right out of the way and try to jump in. He was so well-behaved, but the shower was too tempting for him I guess! I also know someone whose cat loved showers. Insane, right?!

Yes! My oldest boy always sleeps under the covers by my leg. If I don't "let him in" by lifting up the covers he sits there staring at me, whining and putting a paw on me until I do. Kind of like a vampire in the film Let me in.

My other dogs also sleep in the bed, but they prefer to sleep by my feet or somewhere else. If it gets too warm for them or if I accidentally nudge them too much, they get annoyed and leave!

I've never understood people who have dogs but don't let them be on beds and couches or even make them sleep in the hallway. It's like, you got a dog for company right? It's a family member, why not let it sleep with you if it makes it happy? You're not going to get worms or anything from it, that's just silly. Trust me, you get a lot more crap into your body on a daily basis by everything else around you than your dog!

I don't think I would ever let my dog sleep on my bed. It is just too un-hygienic and you could get a disease even. I think I would consider it if my dog was really clean and had just had a bath, but otherwise I'd usually not allow her. When we first got her she used to jump up at the couch and try and lie on that but after telling her not to I think she learnt her lesson. The same goes with the bed really.

@Kyama3 I definitely think it depends on the dog, I let mine outside only under close supervision and if she gets into anything that might be gross, I give her a bath. Otherwise, she's an indoor dog that doesn't hardly shed, and I brush her teeth every night. I don't think it's bad for her to be laying in my bed, hygiene-wise. If you have a big dog that runs around in the woods and sometimes kills squirrels and stuff like that, yes, I'd be much more weary about them being in my bed. It's a personal preference, at the end of the day.

I definitely think you should set a precedent for how it will be and stick to it. I mean, don't let your dog in your bed one day when you think he's clean, and not the next when you think he's dirty. I think that makes them sad to be given something and then denied it. Mine would cry at my door for an hour if I denied her sleeping in my bad now, I bet. So I would recommend making a firm decision on what's right for you, and stick to it. And make sure, if they aren't sleeping in your bed that they have a nice place elsewhere to sleep.

Now, I unfortunately don't have a dog anymore(he LITERALLY went to the farm up North. We gave him to a farmer because he'd be much happier there than in some cramped home with no backyard for him to play in.), but when I did he ALWAYS slept in my parents bed. Always. He was my dad's best friend, and slept at his feet. This is a big, probably 40lb chocolate lab, so it was pretty funny, actually. The one time he came onto my bed he freaked the hell out, because my bed's a loft bed and he was really high with no way to safely come back down. It was hilarious.

Yes, my dog sleeps in the bed with me. She starts off under the blanket, then sometime in the middle of the night she would come out and sleep in her bed at the foot of my bed.