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| Yes | 69% | 181 votes | Total: 262 votes | |
| No | 31% | 81 votes |
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Add to FavoritesIf your dog or your cat chooses to sleep in your bed, the animal is honoring you. Cats and dogs only choose to sleep with the people they love and trust the most. It is part of their claiming of you, every bit as much as their coming to you for food, play, or petting. When your pet offers you that honor, who would you be to reject it?
Some cats and dogs prefer not to sleep in people's beds. And some people prefer not to sleep with their pets. But among all three species, those are in the minority. Most dogs and most cats like the comfort of cuddling with their friends in the night. And most pet owners enjoy it no less. If you and your cat or dog really prefer to sleep in the same bed, there is no reason at all not to allow it.
If your pet normally spends at least some of its time indoors, and if you would cuddle and pet it during the day, there should be no behavior or health problems that would interfere with it sleeping with you. A cat or dog that knows how to behave in a house is capable of sharing a human's bed. If you keep your pet well groomed, it should not have many fleas, and you will not pick up any more from having it share your bed than from holding and petting it. Few diseases are communicable between humans and dogs, and even fewer with cats. Again, the risk is no greater if you sleep with your pet than if you cuddle it at other times.
Neither should you worry about smothering your pet. Cats and small dogs will get out of the way if you start to roll over on them, even if they are asleep themselves. This reaction is innate, necessary for animals that typically spend their first months sleeping in a pile with their mothers, brothers, and sisters. With larger dogs, there is, of course, no danger that you will crush them under your weight. And if the dog is not too big to fit comfortably in your bed, it is not going to crush you. In a similar vein, if you are part of a couple and decide to make love, the animal will get out of the way in a hurry, returning when the activity has died down.
Having the warmth and weight of an animal in your bed during the night, an animal that loves you, is tremendously comforting. The rhythm of a dog's breathing, or the contented purr of a cat, becomes a familiar and lulling sound. If you are used to sleeping with your pet and have to spend a night away from it, you may find that you do not sleep quite as well.
Some pets wake up their owners during the night. If your dog snores loudly or your hyperactive kitten pounces on your feet in the wee hours, it will probably interfere with your sleep. You may have to put the kitten out of the room when it starts attacking, or to wear earplugs if all other attempts to cure the dog's snoring fail. If you are like the majority of pet owners, you would rather resort to such measures, even if it is more trouble, than not sleep with your pet. Sharing the bed is part of the bond.
For individuals who are afraid of the dark (all children go through a phase of this, and a surprisingly high number of adults also have this fear), the company of a pet may be the key to overcoming it. Usually, fear of the dark is fear less of the dark itself than of being alone in the dark. With a pet, you are not alone.
And it is easy to feel that your pet is protecting you. Cats have excellent night vision, and dogs also tend to see better in the dark than humans. Both kinds of animal have much keener hearing and smell than we do. If your pet lies calmly on your bed, you can be certain that there is no real threat lurking in the dark. You can be just as certain that your four legged friend would alert you if there were.
When it comes time to sleep, there is nothing like the company of a warm and loving cat or dog. Sharing your bed with an animal who honors you by choosing to share it is one of life's greatest pleasures. Neither you nor your pet deserve any less.
Learn more about this author, Megan Stoddard.
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No
Why should your dog actually sleep with you? Sleeping is just sleeping and each of us does that on their own. If it's not about sleeping, but about playing, you can always welcome your dog to jump on your bed for a wake-up play every morning. If it's about lack of security and loneliness, your dog can sleep very close to you, right on the rug in front of your bed. You are much better off by recognizing what it is all about, and by not forcing your dog to play a role that is not really his.
It's not about the old arguments of fleas, diseases and odors. If it would be for these, we would argue about not playing that closely with the dogs before arguing about allowing them to sleep in our beds. Think also that in order to allow your dog to sleep in the same bed with you, you are most probably also enforcing on him stricter hygiene rules that are not really meant for dogs. Shampooing your dog to smell nice because you like it might be well for you to sleep well, but not exactly what the dog needs to sleep well. So it's not about the smells themselves, but about allowing everybody the intimacy of their sleep and respecting their real nature. And it's also about respecting your dog to allow him to be independent and different and not molding him into shapes that are not truly his.
A dog might be like a child to you, but so should the child have his or her own bed and not sleep with the adults. Your dog might be the greatest and healthiest dog on Earth, the closest, funniest and loveliest play companion you have, but respect his (or her) real nature and do not try to make your dog into human form. Let your dog sleep on the ground or on a rug, curled as dogs naturally sleep rather than teaching him to get under a blanket or sleep on a pillow. And let your dog comfort you and bring you joy and make your days full, but let him also be the dog that he is, just as you are the human that you are.
Think also of the times to come. Maybe right now you don't see any reason for which not to allow your dog to sleep in the same bed with you. But what if later on he or you will be really sick for a while and because of that you will not want him to sleep with you anymore? What if there will be somebody else sleeping with you and they will not want the dog also in the bed? Your dog will not understand that, and there is no clear way to explain such thing. His banishment from sleeping next to you will simply be a punishment or degrading of his position. So why to force this on your dog later when you can simply avoid it from the start? Just let him have his own sleeping place as you have yours and enjoy being awake one with another!
Learn more about this author, Diana Appletree.
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