Dogster Editor-in-Chief Janine Kahn recently confessed that she began sleeping alongside her Italian Greyhound, Moxie, on his first night in her small apartment. It was a way to comfort him in his new surroundings and quiet his restless mood (it worked), but since then Moxie has taken to getting in bed pretty much every morning at sunrise. She ended her post by asking you, our readers, whether you do the same, despite a report last year saying it’s a potential health hazard to sleep with a canine. Here’s what you said:
Dogster reader Joanna (one of many who uploaded a photo) was very clear: “I can’t imagine to sleep without them.”
Julie D. reports that she and her dogs sometimes end up in extreme situations (and it’s reflected in her photo below).
“We share our king-size bed with our 13-year-old Rat Terrier, who sleeps in between my legs under the covers, and our 3-year-old Mini Schnauzer — who, no joke, sometimes sleeps on my head! They are my personal security team — they protect me from all that goes bump in the dark.”
Eward4 reports a similar story to that of our editor’s original post — and another case of dog-on-head syndrome.
“When we got Jakie, he was nine weeks old — all big head and big feet and little skinny body — and the first night, Jake stayed with me on the couch,” Eward4 writes. “I like to think that we bonded considerably that first night.”
The reader goes on to report that “I am a little tiny person. I weigh about 110 soaking wet and I’m 4 feet 11 inches tall.” Jakie started out at six pounds, but he’s now grown to about 70 pounds, and “some of the convolutions Jakie and I go through nightly are pretty darn funny — he usually ends up sleeping pretty much on my head.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve woken up at 2:30 in the morning with 70 pounds of Lab mix snoring away peacefully on your cranium!”
Reader Mewherry says her 70-pound Bluetick and her 100-pound Bernese wind up on top of her during the night.
“Only way to sleep,” she says (and shows in the photo below).
lalady27 was among the readers who reported gaining unknown injuries during the night from her Weimaraner. “I do sometimes wake up in the morning with scratches that I’m not sure how I got,” she says. “The best is when I’m on my side and he plops down along my back so close that my shirt gets stuck and it just about chokes me.”
Nonetheless, she says, “I wouldn’t give it up for the world, regardless of the sleep I may or may not actually get.”
Azgal_7771 wrote, “I thought we all slept with our dogs.”
And we were beginning to think so too. A handful of readers, though, said they don’t — although they had good reasons.
“I have three Doxies and they all love their crates,” writes Knotlazy. “They have fleecy blankets to snuggle in and when they go to bed, I make sure they can burrow under them.”
Janebarnas, meanwhile, wrote that while her dogs don’t typically stay the night, “We do … allow them up on the bed sometimes to just hang for awhile.”
A reader called littleone’s mommy wrote “I don’t sleep with my dog,” quickly clarifying, “She sleeps with me.”
