Science Says You Shouldn’t Sleep Next to Your Dog

This series is supported by James Squire, who want to help level-up your pub banter over summer. This article was originally published on VICE.com.

So this thing you keep doing—this letting your dog sleep on the bed thing—you should stop that. Firstly, because a new study has proven it is detrimental to your sleep. But also because you can do better.

The study comes courtesy of Mayo Clinic, which is a nonprofit medical group based in Minnesota. Researchers there took 40 adult dog owners, none of whom were suffering sleep disorders, and monitored their sleep quality over the course of seven nights. They wanted to know whether humans sleep better with dogs on the floor or on the bed, and the results aren’t looking good for puppy snugglers.

Basically, humans sleep better when not spooning dogs. The dog-spooners scored a sleep efficiency rating of 80 percent, while the people who know that dog beds exist scored 83 percent. As the report noted, “Humans with a single dog in their bedroom maintained good sleep efficiency; however, the dog’s position on/off the bed made a difference.”

And sure, a bonus sleep efficiency rating of three percent isn’t astounding. Experts agree that 80 percent is considered an “okay” night’s rest—while anything between 85 and 89 percent is normal. But the report highlighted that dog-spooners wake up more frequently, and as you’d know if you’ve ever tried sleeping next to a dog that does that snuffling, one-leg-running thing at 4 AM, waking up frequently makes you tired.

And this leads us to the final point. Because even though you love your pooch even more than you like people—which is a sentence you throw around more than you realise—and even though she looks brain-meltingly cute in a neck tie and always knows how you’re feeling and exactly what to do to make you feel better, and even though you can’t say no and you spoil her with that really expensive food she likes, “Endangered Fish Feast” or whatever it’s called… even though all of that—she still eats random vomit in the park. And that’s why you shouldn’t sleep with your dog.

@MorgansJulian

This series is supported by James Squire