Thinking about their sleep patterns, on World Sleep Day
How many hours sleep do you think an adult dog needs? 6-8 hours, 9-11, 12-14?
Well the answer may surprise you … they need 12-16 hours a day.
Dogs sleep on and off throughout the day. Puppies sleep loads – up to 20 hours. Older dogs, and bigger dogs after activity, will need more too.
Sleep is important to repair and recharge, processing all the exciting things the day has brought them.
According to PDSA study, 53% of dogs are not getting enough sleep.
And over a quarter are getting less than 10 hours.
Importantly, the national charity found several associations between dog behaviour and sleep. Significantly more dogs who get less than 10 hours sleep show growling, snapping or biting towards other dogs in the household compared to dogs who get more than 13 hours sleep.
How can you improve your dog’s sleep at home?
Make sure your pet gets enough downtime and their naps are undisturbed - sleep is important to repair and recharge, processing all the exciting things the day has brought them. When they are young you may have to encourage them to settle down at first – its why ‘settle’ or ‘go to bed’ is one of the things you learn in puppy school.
Unsurprisingly, the more people and children you have in your house the less sleep dogs get, as they are such sociable creatures wanting to say hello and check in on you, so it is your responsibility to help your dog get those naps undisturbed.
How do we help our dogs' sleep in rescue?
In a busy environment, and with lots of other dogs, it can be difficult to give dogs some quiet, but we do our best.
We settle them down with their lunch and then they have 45 minutes to snooze whilst we have our lunch. We play gentle music to help them doze off! On Wednesday afternoons we have super-quiet days, without volunteer walkers or adoption appointments.
And of course, although we have night duty staff, the dogs do have a longer time alone than pet dogs after our workday finishes. This presents its own problem though, as dogs must adjust their routine when they are adopted. Adopters tell us often that, in the first week, their new pets will settle down early evening in expectation.
[pictured: Kaya asleep in her foster home]