Study finds sleeping near dogs does not disrupt human sleep, but humans may disturb dogs

Left · 1A University of Toronto study published Wednesday in PLOS One found that people who sleep near their dogs do not experience disrupted sleep. 1 Left · 1Activity trackers monitored 25 human volunteers and their 38 dogs in southern Ontario for four weeks, with people wearing them on their wrists and dogs on their collars; all the dogs were huskies and malamutes with no health problems. 1 Left · 1The work was done during the Covid pandemic as part of a larger project comparing activity patterns of socialized wolves and domestic dogs. 1

Left · 1About half the people, particularly those sleeping with more than one dog, reported interrupted sleep in a survey, but the tracker data showed that sharing a bed with dogs affected neither the humans' nor the dogs' sleep duration or quality. 1 Mixed · 2Humans and dogs became active at around the same time during the night, but the humans tended to move first and disturb their dogs rather than the reverse, according to co-author Ming Fei Li; the Irish Independent likewise reports that humans are more likely to wake their dogs than the other way around. 1 2 Left · 1This contradicts a 2020 study that found dogs influenced human movement more than the reverse, and it made no difference whether dogs slept on the bed or in a nearby area. 1

Left · 1Li cited limitations including the small sample, which had more women than men, and little variation in dog breeds. 1 Left · 1Earlier research was mixed: a 2023 study linked pet ownership to poorer sleep, and a 2017 Mayo Clinic study found people slept better with a dog nearby except when it was on the bed. 1 Left · 1Sleep specialist W. Christopher Winter, who was not involved in the study, said dogs can help by imposing consistent routines, but large dogs may hog the bed and breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs may snore loudly. 1