First of all, I’d like to say that I’ve been reading the various threads on this forum with great interest and I'm really impressed by the time and effort some of you put into informing and guiding owners who are feeling a bit lost.
I’ve already learnt so much thanks to you, so thank you!
Anyway, back to the point:
I’ve read a few topics on this, but opinions seem to vary so much that it's starting to worry me. I’m about to adopt a White Swiss Shepherd; he’ll be with us at the end of December if all goes well.
I’ve got a question about bedtime, which is clearly a big debate!
Is it really essential for a dog's well-being to be kept out of the bedroom? I was planning on having the puppy in my room, in a designated spot. While looking through breeders' websites, I’ve noticed some advise against this, mainly for the dog's sake.
I’m expecting some chewing and a few accidents, so I’m fairly prepared and not particularly worried about it happening, but if it’s genuinely bad for the dog, that concerns me a bit more...
Thanks in advance for your replies.
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On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend letting the puppy sleep in your bed all night. It’s better to just have them up for a cuddle and then put them back in their own bed. This is simply because you don't want the pup jumping off the bed if they want to get down; it’s really bad for their joints while they’re still growing. You’ve got to be careful with that! ;)
Once they're older, you can decide whether or not to give them access to the bed, depending on what you prefer.
My big lad is allowed on the bed pretty much whenever he wants, but we’ve fallen into a bit of a routine. Even though he’s allowed up, he doesn't sleep there all the time – mind you, he’s got a very comfy armchair all to himself. But he still has his moments where he comes for a cuddle in bed.
It really depends on how much time you can dedicate to training.
It's perfectly possible to let your puppy sleep in bed with you without them becoming too clingy or trying to assert dominance over you. You just need to put enough time into their training (gradually teaching them to be alone, establishing the family hierarchy, and so on).
That said, they still need their own dedicated spot that's accessible at all times — that's really important.
I did exactly this with my puppy, who I chose to adopt at the start of my holidays, so I was able to give her 100% of my time.
Perle is eight months old now, can be left alone for several hours, and still sleeps with me — but if I tell her to go to her bed, she does it without any fuss.
It all comes down to training, and if you put enough time into it (with plenty of patience, because positive reinforcement is effective but slow), it works wonders. It takes a lot of patience and effort.
As for me and Tosca, she falls asleep with me until my partner gets off work, and when he goes to bed, he sends her to her bed in the living room... she’s not easy to wake up, he has to carry her to put her back on her feet lol. She tries her luck sometimes, hoping he’ll forget her... but there we go, no issues at all.
Hello. I’d say that at the start, it’s best to keep them in their dog bed in a specific room, and then over time, you can adjust things depending on the dog’s personality. That’s what I did—initially, she wasn't allowed on the sofa or the bed.
Now, I let my dog sleep in my room and on the bed with me, and I don’t have any issues with separation anxiety. We sleep together at night, but I go off to work during the day and she stays home, and everything goes perfectly fine.
As for managing space and boundaries, my dog still has one "off-limits" area: the office. When it comes to whether she expects her house rules to apply elsewhere—no, I’ve never had that problem. If we visit someone who doesn’t allow dogs on the sofa, she doesn’t jump up. She’ll just stand there and look at me, and if I say “no, you can’t sit here,” she stays down.
At my mum’s place, Menza sleeps in my room but isn’t allowed on the bed; she sleeps in her own bed next to mine and it works out great—she doesn’t even try to push her luck. She’s not allowed in the living room there, so she stops right at the doorway.
The reason I allow it is because Menza is quite obedient and she “asks” before helping herself to things. With her temperament, I can get away with it. If she’d ever growled to guard the bed or the sofa, that would have been an absolute ban!
I've had dogs that mostly slept in the hallway, but my current dogs slept in the bedroom in the first flat they lived in, and they’d occasionally sneak onto the bed once they knew I was fast asleep. In the second house, they had dog beds in the bedroom and the bed was strictly off-limits, which they followed without any bother. In our current place, the bedroom door stays open but there’s a little pet gate to let them know they’re not allowed in – they’ve had no trouble adapting to the new rules at all.
I don't think letting a dog sleep in the bedroom makes them unable to be left alone. You can easily train them to be comfortable on their own during the day while still having them sleep with you at night.
When I got my Dogo Argentino, I banned him from the bedroom, the sofa, and so on... I stopped him from following me around the house. But at the same time, I didn't actually teach him how to be alone; as a result, he’d howl the second I left.
With my Dogue de Bordeaux, I’ve let him do whatever he likes. He sleeps in my room, on his bed, his rug, his armchair, and even in the bed if he wants to. But alongside that, I taught him how to stay on his own. I started by leaving the room, stopping him from following me, and so on... And well, he's perfectly fine being left alone now.
So, whether they sleep in the bedroom or not isn't really the issue. It's the training that ensures a dog is happy and relaxed when their owner is out. Plus, if you force a dog to sleep on a mat when your heart isn't in it, the dog picks up on that too. You should do what feels right for you and not worry too much about certain training principles that are sometimes a bit outdated or just don't suit you.
Whereas with other types of dogs there aren’t any issues at all, it really is a case-by-case thing.
Yes, real characters! 😁
We had some friends who asked us to dog-sit while they were away on a trip—a young Pug and a Rottie. We had Volka, our Lab, at the time, so that made three dogs in the car on the way to the lake... The parcel shelf held up fine with the Pug, but not so much under the weight of the Rottie...
I can still see the look on Volka’s face even now... not to mention the mood my husband was in! ^^
Overall, I reckon all those so-called "pack rules" about space (not letting your dog on the bed, going through doors before them, etc.) or food (eating before your dog, not letting them beg at the table, etc.) are more of a myth than anything else. They don’t really have much to do with how a group of dogs actually functions in the real world. That said, they do have the benefit of making owners stick to a routine and enforce rules on sensitive spots like space and resources, which helps work on the dog's frustration and impulse control.
But as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing stopping you from completely ignoring those rules and setting your own that suit you better.
I mentioned the "virtual barrier" as an example of teaching a dog to respect a boundary in a certain place (which can then be used anywhere, even when staying with friends on holiday, once the training has sunk in).
I could give another example: with my dogs, we work on food frustration by having them eat right next to us. Their heads are just a few inches from our plates (we eat at the coffee table in the lounge, sitting on the sofa, and the dogs are usually curled up on the sofa right beside us). However, they aren't allowed to touch a thing of their own accord; they have to wait until we offer them a little taste of something.
I think that does 100 times more for teaching impulse control around food than the traditional approach where the dog isn't allowed under your feet during dinner and only gets their bowl once the humans have finished.
Anyway, I mainly think every household should live by whatever rules suit them best! :)
But you’ve always got to keep in mind that if a dog isn’t used to following certain rules, they won't miraculously understand or follow them on the day you actually need them to. It’s all about anticipating that.
@Lorna "A big puppy with a Boxer temperament... if you let him have the run of the place, he’s just EVERYWHERE all the time LOL (by everywhere I mean 'all over the place'—one minute he's licking your face, the next his bum is in the air on your shoulder, and a second later he's whipping your ear with his slobbery rope toy, etc.)"
But I think if an owner is really set on letting their "big galoot" of a dog sleep with them, it’s perfectly possible, provided you "train" them to follow other rules (regarding personal space) elsewhere.
For instance, with Léon—who isn't too rough but is still such a velcro dog that it gets exhausting (mainly because he’s a compulsive licker; his favourite thing is trying to shove his tongue in my ear when I'm busy doing something else 😡)—I taught him "SHOO" quite early on, which basically means "go away, I don't want you near me right now". It does the job nicely.
On the other hand, blocking access to a room or an object is something I’ve neglected a bit, but we’re starting on that now. Léon is struggling a little, whereas Basile picks it up really quickly.
It's the same for the issue of hyper-attachment.
Letting your dog sleep with you means missing an opportunity to work on independence, but there’s nothing stopping you from working on it at another time of day, in a different way.
In my opinion, the only real reason not to let your dog sleep in the bedroom—and especially on the bed or the sofas and such—is if there’s an issue with possessiveness. At least, not until you’re well on the way to fixing that problem.
