Odd question to those of you who have dogs

[VladmirsPoutine]

Question: Do your dogs follow your own sleep habits? In that do they usually wake when you do or are they barking at 3am for no apparent reason? Is 'sleep training' also part of general dog training?

Mine are a mirror of me, I am up they are up. They used to come to work with me, leave at 4.30am, up without hesitation. Weekend lie in, no problem.

New baby, woke when baby woke, sat by me, back to sleep. Slightly strange pattern of midnight walks with pram for a while, dh was worried they would expect, but they just follow me. I get sick, very sick, twelve hours in bed, they don't move. Funny little things, very tuned in.

I have a four year old spaniel she sleeps in the kitchen, in a crate but not locked and she can roam around the room. She likes her routine nighttime garden visit, biscuit and she opens her crate door gets in closing the door behind her to bed! She gets annoyed if we have friends over and we are in the kitchen chatting/drinking gets huffy past midnight! As we are disturbing her!

Overnight we don’t hear a peek unless she has had a tummy upset and needed an emergency garden visit (very very rare!)
We trained her from a puppy. We did need to take her out over the nights for bathroom breaks until she could control her bladder etc but from around 5/6 months routine in place and no problems. I did sleep in the living room with her crate for the first few nights slowly moving the crate to the kitchen - it was like having a newborn baby again! But within 10 days fairly ok.
Some dogs I know prefer to sleep in the bedrooms. Mine is a Velcro dog during the day but is happy enough to sleep downstairs. She does love coming upstairs to my bed for morning cuddles!

Mine follows my routine. Only time I’m woken up is if one of them has a dodgy tummy and needs to go out. That happens max once a year. At this time of year I let them sleep in my room as they are petrified of fireworks, otherwise they are happy sleeping downstairs in the lounge.

I was worried about nighttime waking before I got my dog but mine is sleeping by 730 and only gets up at 630 because i do, I feed her and then she takes herself back to bed for an hour or so. She's a greyhound and when we got her she was quite surprised to be woken that early! I wake early on weekends maybe about 7.

I've learnt the things you worry about aren't necessarily the things that are an issue - it's very dog specific . We have other issues but sleep is not one of them!

I'm going against the grain here but we had huge problems with our dog sleeping through the night. We didn't want her sleeping in our bedroom so we persisted with sleep training her to sleep downstairs in a crate but it took absolutely ages and was painful. For months she cried for at least an hour when we left her at night, then sporadically in the night when she woke up, then again from 4.30-5ish. It gradually improved but it took over a year for her to truly stop crying at night, she's perfect now. She didn't need a wee, she was perfectly warm and comfortable she was just bored and clingy and very vocal about letting us know that she wasn't completely happy. I don't know how we didn't give up and let her in the bed, I probably would have if it was just me.

Mine is lazier than me! My toy poodle ruby will ask to go to bed earlier and if I’m late she will stand at the living room door groaning. I have to bribe her to get up in the morning sometimes

My 2 have just taken themselves up to my sons room and got in with him. They don't like a late night

And one is a working cocker who is bonkers during the day. But they will stay with him until about 7am.

Mine more or less have our sleep habits, including having a lie in when we do. But if one of us tries to creep to the loo around 6am that's it, they think it's up time.

Mine sleep during the night (and most of the day).
There’s no training as such but it’s important to make sure they’re mentally and physically tired out during the day by playing with them and taking them for a walk, so they’ll be tired at night.
Once the lights are off and everyone’s in bed there’s nothing else for them to do but sleep.

I think you’ll be surprised by how much they actually sleep as my dogs seem to be asleep for the majority of the day.

My dog follows my sleep schedule if he is in the same room as me. He wakes up early if he is on his own downstairs. I let him in our bedroom to get full sleep.

Ours go to bed with us, and get up with us.

We had a dog, years ago, who decided 10 o’clock was bedtime. Fine during the week, but if you wanted to stay up later at the weekend she’d keep walking to the stairs and staring up, it was quite off putting.

Mine only bark when there's someone at the door, never at night.

They can be different, most of mine settle down at nine one even gets into my sons bed every night at nine ish, the little one follows me around until I go to bed, but I go early anyway.
They only usually make a noise in the night if they hear something strange.
My older ones get up later about 9 to 9:30 when everyone is up, but lazy around until their breakfast is dished up.
The little one wakes up at 7:30 ready to go to the park and has breakfast when we get back.
My son takes the older two out for a few hours once their breakfast has gone down. X

We’ve got a lab and she’s seven months old. We opted to crate train her. For the first month we took turns sleeping in the same room as her as she did need to go out to the toilet at random times. Then we moved to the next room for a few nights and now back to the bedroom ever since. She sleeps downstairs in her crate. She goes out to the garden before we go to bed now and then goes straight into her crate. She very rarely barks or whines before we get up. It’s an XL crate so she has plenty of room to spread out. She also has some toys in there. We only use the crate now for night time.

Our dog has a bedtime routine and then sleeps upstairs on a double bed in his own room ( he shares if adult son is visiting ) , he comes into our room when he hears my husband going into the bathroom in the morning .

One of mine sleeps like a log and sleeps in in the morning.

The other one has weird shuffling moments and n the night and watches me like a hawk for signs of waking up. I’ve learned to pretend I’m sleeping d so I he’s bugger off. He takes himself to bed, my bed, on his own around 10.

No training, they just do it on their own.

My dog follows our general sleep patterns- but gets grumpy if we have a particularly late night or early morning (anyone daring to want to turn lights on in the kitchen earlier than usual gets 'the look'). My parents dog on the other hand wakes them up barking at 6am every day.

Barking at night can be a sign of doggie dementia.

I have had two JRT …they both stay in bed with me. My youngest one is 5 and gets up with me.

My dog generally follows my sleeping habits, but will also do the barking at 3 am thing if he hears a noise outside .

Our ddogs know when it's 10pm and last wee /bedtime.
2 sleep in the kitchen and 2 get tucked in like this and are still there at 6am when dh gets up.

Mine only bark during the night if they hear the fox or a cat in the garden. If I happen to go downstairs for a drink during the night I use my phone torch because putting the light on leads to disgruntled humphing and sighing and 'the look'.

Mine follows my entire daily routine!

Gets up and has breakfast when I do, lays in his second bed on my office floor all day while I sit at my desk working, has his tea when I do then spends his evening playing with me or sitting on the sofa watching to with me.

Bedtime same as me

Non issue here. But I think we were lucky. We put puppy in crate at bedtime and let her out at morning without a peep. She is 1 now and loves sleep from 8pm onwards and will happily snooze till 8/9 am. VERY active breed too.

My dog used to go to bed at 10. She'd do a sweep of the living room to check if anyone else was ready to retire and if not she'd head upstairs alone (she slept on the landing). And she refused to get out of bed before 7.30 - if you were up before then you had to step over/work round her.