Study Proves That Dogs struggle to get a good night’s sleep after a rough day
A night spent turning and tossing, thinking about all the embarrassing things you did that day, is the worst.
It is not what we’d wish on anyone, especially not dogs, as we all know, they are man best friend.
So, it’s with a heavy heart that we report that, similar to human, dogs struggle to sleep well at night if they have a stressful day.
A new study has found that dogs that have difficult and exhausting experiences end up sleeping badly, just like humans who suffer from anxiety.
The researchers measured the sleep of dogs such as the Golden Retriever, Labrador, Shepherd Dog and Jack Russell.
Before each dog falls asleep, the dogs were given either a positive experience playing with the owner, being caressed, and being shower with attention-or a negative experience, being left alone on a lead and ignored by its owner, then being approached in a threatening manner by a researcher.
As expected, dogs that had negative experiences before sleep had worse sleep than dogs that had good experiences, with 40 to 50 minutes of deep sleep during a three-hour nap compared to more than an hour for those who slept normally.
You will notice that there is not a big difference, with the bad experience only reducing deep sleep by about 20 minutes. But, in fact, a dog that faces any level of bad sleep is enough to make us a bit tearful.
Now, of course, most of us aren’t exposing our dogs to unpleasant events just before bedtime. But this research may suggest that any stressful experience, even leaving our dog alone for most of the day, can cause sleep disruption.
So, if your dog keeps waking up and rousing you from sleep in the process, it's worth thinking about your dog stress levels.
Having poor sleep constantly can make dogs more irritating and aggressive, and makes it difficult for them to remember tricks.
"In humans, stress causes difficulty in sleeping, while dogs fall asleep faster, and we believe it is a protective measure to remove them from the stressful environment," explains Dr. Anna Kis of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
It is not what we’d wish on anyone, especially not dogs, as we all know, they are man best friend.
So, it’s with a heavy heart that we report that, similar to human, dogs struggle to sleep well at night if they have a stressful day.
A new study has found that dogs that have difficult and exhausting experiences end up sleeping badly, just like humans who suffer from anxiety.
The researchers measured the sleep of dogs such as the Golden Retriever, Labrador, Shepherd Dog and Jack Russell.
Before each dog falls asleep, the dogs were given either a positive experience playing with the owner, being caressed, and being shower with attention-or a negative experience, being left alone on a lead and ignored by its owner, then being approached in a threatening manner by a researcher.
As expected, dogs that had negative experiences before sleep had worse sleep than dogs that had good experiences, with 40 to 50 minutes of deep sleep during a three-hour nap compared to more than an hour for those who slept normally.
You will notice that there is not a big difference, with the bad experience only reducing deep sleep by about 20 minutes. But, in fact, a dog that faces any level of bad sleep is enough to make us a bit tearful.
Now, of course, most of us aren’t exposing our dogs to unpleasant events just before bedtime. But this research may suggest that any stressful experience, even leaving our dog alone for most of the day, can cause sleep disruption.
So, if your dog keeps waking up and rousing you from sleep in the process, it's worth thinking about your dog stress levels.
Having poor sleep constantly can make dogs more irritating and aggressive, and makes it difficult for them to remember tricks.
"In humans, stress causes difficulty in sleeping, while dogs fall asleep faster, and we believe it is a protective measure to remove them from the stressful environment," explains Dr. Anna Kis of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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