Dogs in the bedroom

I have been watching several training videos lately and going back to basics with asserting ourselves as pack leaders for the past week, the results have been pretty amazing. However all the videos tell us not to have the dogs in bed with us - which we have never done, with three dogs they'd be no room for us, but we never let them on the furniture, however we always left the bedroom door open and they'd all sleep on the bedroom floor. One video tells us not to have the dogs in the bedroom at all, lock them out. So we did this, and to be honest it just feels a little odd, as they regard us as their pack yet cant sleep in close proximity to us? I'm not sure thats right - is it?
We also get a lot of hard breathing at the door and rattling of the handle with their noses all night long!
What does everyone else think about having dogs in the bedroom?

our dogs are part of the pack, and they sleep in the bedroom with us (their choice). however they are NOT allowed on the bed except once in a while for a quick cuddle and it's only with an invitation. they are part of the family and they know their place on the totem pole (at the very bottom!), everyone is comfortable with the arrangement... works for us :thumbs up

Ditto everything Technodoll said. :thumbs up

Yes, we've had them up on the bed on rare occassions - as it is Pepe is scared of heights so uncomfortable with it even for a few seconds!

All three of mine are welcomed on the bed at night, two take us up on the offer, one stays the entire night, one leave for her crate anywhere within an hour or two. In all cases, they understand that they are there by invitation and not by right. With a simple off command they all will vacate if requested. Personally, I don't see a problem with them on the bed provided they understand their place in the arrangement.

I guess I strongly disagree with the thought that dogs don't belong in the bedroom. At night, it is the one place where they are likely to feel calm and safe. In the bedroom, they quiet down quickly, rarely bark, and never get into trouble at night.

My dogs have never been encouraged to spend much time in the bedroom during the day. Except during the 4th of July (fireworks) and during thunderstorms. The bedroom, for my dogs, has always been a sanctuary.

I guess I strongly disagree with the thought that dogs don't belong in the bedroom. At night, it is the one place where they are likely to feel calm and safe. In the bedroom, they quiet down quickly, rarely bark, and never get into trouble at night.


I sort of think it depends on the dog. My dogs have always slept in my bed with me. It hasn't caused any problems in their case and I find that there are many other opportunities to re-enforce their place in the "pack".

If, however, I had dogs who were more dominant and challenging to human authority, the rules regarding access to furniture would be different. I don't think that there is one formula that fits every dog and owner, so I'm not sure that one can make a hard and fast rule about dogs in the bedroom.

Roxie ALWAYS sleeps in my room with me. It was never intentional to let her, I have just always lived in bachelor type set ups and there is never any where else for me to put her. Even now that I have my own bedroom (living with my grandparents and my aunt) it's more convinet and easier for me to control her if she's in my room.

When she first came to live with me, she was kept in her crate, until I was sure she was house broken. Since then she's generally had access to her crate during the night and would sleep there or under my bed anyway, so it's rarely been an issue for her to be on my bed. She does tend to come up on the bed for a short cuddle when I first go to bed and close to the time I wake up, she hops back on to snuggle in, but that's about it. When ever we move to a new location, she is recrated until I am confident that she wont make a mess in the new enviroment. At least that was how it used to work. lol! My other anut got a puppy so we lent her our crate. However we had the puppy when my aunt went on vacation and Roxie joined the pup in the crate, so I guess she never really lost the crate training and she certianly knows that it's hers!

So basically to sum up. It depends on the dog as to weather or not you allow them in the room with you or to sleep with you on the bed.

I agree with everybody. I could never disallow my doggies from sleeping with their pack. They do however have to ask permission to sleep with me, and when they do, they always end up getting off the bed during the night anyway. :shrug: Jemma especially feels that the bed is not her place.

We don't let them upstairs at all (carpets and husband's allergies). They are allowed to snuggle with us on the couch, but they sleep in 'their room' together.
I have to say, sometimes it's nice to have a hair/drool free refuge :) But if we lived in a bungalow, I think they'd be in with us for sure. The stairs are a good excuse.

All 3 of mine sleep in the bed with their pack and pack leaders. I'm not sure how that could be wrong as it is what happens in a pack. The foster dogs sleep on a big pillow on the floor that they take with them when they leave for comfort. If any of my dogs did try to assert their dominance with us the would not be able to sleep in the bed or be on the couch until they got it. It is a privilege not a right to sleep in my bed. The two times that Soozie peed in my bed when she first came to us she was immediately banished to spend the night apart from us.

I agree that it's different for every family, and the choices they make. I've known families who's dogs slept in the kid's bedrooms, or even in bed with the kids, and families who's dogs slept alone in the basement or in the living room... it really depends on what you're comfortable with. I guess what it comes down to is that your dogs obviously want to be with you, and you've let them do it so far, so what's the reason for change?
My doggie wasn't housetrained when he came to me, and I have 3 cats who were there first. I knew with the dog taking up most of my waking hours, that the cats would want to (and deserved) to spend some time with me. So I crated the dog at night. The crate is next to my bed, so he can hear & see me, but he sleeps in *his* bed. I see that a lot of people leave the crate doors open after awhile and most dogs choose to sleep in their "den", but I always close the door to mine, otherwse my doggie chases the cats, licks one of them (she is having an allergic reaction in her ears and apparently the "guck" tastes good to him, I think it's a horrible habit), and generally doesn't allow me to get a lot of sleep. Plus he's a small dog and doesn't seem to be able to wait 8 hours to go pee, so he always wakes me up after about 6 hrs to go out. If he wasn't crated, he'd go downstairs and ring his doorbell. But sometimes he waits too long, because by the time he rings the bell and I wake up, get out of bed and go down, he's peeing or pooping beside the door (I know this because we let him sleep in the bed on weekends while we sleep in and after his morning pee/poo but sometimes he wasn't done). If he's crated, he *always* wakes me up before it's an emergency and gets outside in time.

So my opinion is; do whatever you and your dogs are happy with. I allow my cats free run of the house and though they don't always share the bed with us, every morning when I wake up, usually all 3 of them are in the bedroom somewhere (there's a chair in there that usually 2 of them are on). Sometimes all in the bed, sometimes not. I let them decide whether they want to be kicked or not. :)

The key to this is to do what makes you happy, and I'm going to guess that if you're getting a good night's sleep, your dogs aren't being a nuisance, and when you wake up in the morning, you're greeted by a happy puppy face, then you'll be happy. Whether you have to go downstairs, to the living room or simply open your eyes to see that little face...

Melissa

Jesse is in our room with us every night and can sleep with us anytime she wants. She usually starts off sleeping on "her" body pillow at the end of the bed, but then gets off and either sleeps on her bed & blankie on Daddy's side or on the down comforter on Mommy's side -- she usually picks Mommy. My girl has style. :D

Our reasons were that we felt we had let our dogs down in asserting ourselves as pack leaders, this culminated in them getting out of hand and they killed our cat, it was a gradual process and we didnt see it coming So we decided to go back to basics and assert ourselves as pack leaders and this one training dvd we watched said to banish the dogs from the bedroom. We have asserted ourselves in other ways and the results are fantastic, i just felt it unnatural to have us as pack leaders but then to separate them from us, how can they interact with us as pack leaders if they arent around us? Left to their own devices Pepe will just resume that role for the other two which is really what we want to avoid in the first place!
I like the hair free idea - however those doghair tumble weeds just roll in everytime we open the door!
My Toby is a mummys boy and follows me everywhere, he'd follow me through the gates of hell if i walked through them, and i know its him heavily snuffling the door all night long and rattling the handle. Maybe once their training has improved we can let them back in?

I thought it might have been you who posted about the doggies who hurt the cat, but I couldn't remember correctly.
Regardless, and though I do appreciate you wanting to assert your dominance, I'm not convinced that banishing your dogs from the bedroom is going to actually teach them that you're their leader. And letting them back in later will only confuse them.
I'm not sure how big your bedroom is, if the boys are crate trained or if they'd respect one, but perhaps you can set up an exercise pen (the wire ones) in your bedroom. Put the dogs in there at night, so at least they're in the same room, you can make sure they're not "doing their own thing" and you'll be enforcing your dominance by allowing them to be in the same room, but by showing that which space is *theirs* and which is *yours*. Plus it'll cut down on the door-snuffling and handle-rattling by the one who obviously NEEDS to be with you. It's not fair to him to let him be the only one in your room, but it's also not fair that he should be forced to be away from you when he obviously needs you. You wouldn't force a child who was afraid of the dark to sleep without a nightlight, and you need to play the same role with your dogs (protect but lead them).
If you can set up a pen or crates for each one of them (ha ha ha, right?) in your room, then you can tell them when it's ok to "go to bed", when it's ok to get up and reinforce what is appropriate bedtime/overnight behaviour. Even the best behaved dog will have a hard time resisting a nocturnal cat running past their face in the middle of the night, and even worse if you're not there to stop them from doing something stupid. I give my dog a dental treat at bedtime and even when I didn't intend to close the door on his kennel, he goes in to get his treat and only comes out once it's in his mouth. Routines are very good for dogs, and you don't want to change it too much.

Hope that helped... just my two cents if it's not what you wanted to hear. :P
Melissa

I was told by an animal behaviorist not to let my previous dog, Max, on the bed anymore when he started showing fearful aggression. So I banished him from the bed, felt evil for doing it, and unfortunately never saw a change in his behavior. So I don't know if removing a dog from your bed alone will solve dominance problems. Perhaps I didn't do it correctly, not sure, but for me, it was unsuccessful.
Petey doesn't go on my bed as I've since developed allergies, but he sleeps on his doggie bed in my bedroom beside my bed. But he does go all over the furniture. It's leather, so can be brushed off, and so far doesn't bother my allergies too much. Petey doesn't have a dominant bone in his body though, so I have not had to worry about establishing order with him like I was told to do with Max.
I'll be curious to see if you notice a difference or not as for me, this did not work. But again, it could be I just didn't do enough. I never really did figure that one out. It felt like whatever I did made no difference for Max, so I just made sure to keep him out of the wrong situations. Good luck!

Left to their own devices Pepe will just resume that role for the other two which is really what we want to avoid in the first place!

I have read several of your posts, and since your dogs aren't in seperate crates at night, I would let them sleep in your bedroom as long as they're not allowed on the bed.
If you leave them outside of your bedroom they may consider themselves a pack and start thinking you guys aren't part of it (not necessarily, but possibly).
Unless your dogs have shown possessiveness towards the room or your bed it shouldn't be a problem to have them in the bedroom. Possessive behavior would be them growling at you when you try to enter the room or something (which I'm guessing from your posts isn't the case).
As long as the dogs don't have free run of your house, the furniture, or any other items they may have access to, sleeping in your bedroom isn't a problem since the pack usually sleeps together. Just don't ever allow them in the bed until you've established yourselves as pack leader and they know they're only allowed up and down with YOUR permission.
One of our dogs is fairly dominant, but we do let her sleep in the bedroom. We let her enter the bedroom with our permission, and then she has a place that she sleeps in.

So we decided to go back to basics and assert ourselves as pack leaders and this one training dvd we watched said to banish the dogs from the bedroom.For reestablishing dominance, get them off the bed and the sofa, not necessarily out of the bedroom. As long as they're on the floor, IMO, that's a message.

My dogs sleep on the bed but not all at once.:eek: But I do live alone...

One of my sleeps in his own bed each night (his choice) and the other waits until we're asleep and then jumps in. Or, if by some miracle, she's not in bed when I wake up, she jumps in as soon as I get up and snuggles with the hubby. Except when there is thunder.... then everyone gets to hide under the safety of the duvet.

I must admit it was only this one dvd that mentioned locking them out of the bedroom, the others didn't they just stated not to have the dogs on the furniture.
They've never been crated before so not sure how they would take to that.
I was thinking about it last night and we always had a bit of a laugh with the dogs because in the evening one by one they'll take themselves to the bedroom and we always call out 'Night Night Cody' or whatever, it just amused us - it was as if they looked at their watches and decided to call it a night!
So maybe, we ought to keep the bedroom door shut, and only invite them in when we go to bed?

Since I am a "big dog" person, I have not allowed my dogs to sleep on the bed or any other furniture.

My little guy will sleep with the kids at night and then follow me to bed. While I may allow him on the bed, I find that he prefers to sleep under the bed.

Rubbish to those videos!

The pack absolutely sleeps together. You are bonding in your sleep. Young pups are supported emotionally knowing the pack leaders are looking out for them. Pups who are left out of the bedroom have every reason to believe no one cares and they are more likely to become independent and insecure.

ALL of our dogs sleep in bed with us - touching us and each other. It is what is natural. Granted we have a king size bed and the blankets get hairy, but it is worth it.

It is not about the furniture, or bed or who eats first - its about the relationship. Who is in charge of the rules and the territory. If that is in balance then nothing else really matters in the long run.

If a dog is starting to possess the bed or furniture then you have other work to do. It is a symptom of your relationship not the disease itself.

Get those kids back into your room ASAP and tell them sorry about kicking them out. :grouphug: <- that's you hugging your dogs! :thumbs up

I must admit it was only this one dvd that mentioned locking them out of the bedroom, the others didn't they just stated not to have the dogs on the furniture.
They've never been crated before so not sure how they would take to that.
I was thinking about it last night and we always had a bit of a laugh with the dogs because in the evening one by one they'll take themselves to the bedroom and we always call out 'Night Night Cody' or whatever, it just amused us - it was as if they looked at their watches and decided to call it a night!
So maybe, we ought to keep the bedroom door shut, and only invite them in when we go to bed?


My dogs have always had a blanket on the floor next to or at the end of the bed (even the one dog that was allowed to sleep on the bed occasionally.) If they're tired or just want to be alone, they are allowed to go lie down on their blanket, whenever. Not allowed on the bed alone, tho. Not for long periods during the day, either, their jobs during the day are to be companions, guards, and goofballs during the day. Which isn't a problem (especially with the poodles I've had which have been allowed on the sofa) as they mostly want to at minimum watch my movements & sometimes follow me around.

My sofa has washable cushion covers and some nice flannel sheet material covering it all (can be washed rather regularly.)

I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with letting your dog to sleep in the bedroom.

My dogs (Blacky and Dick) ware allowed to sleep or stay wherever they wanted but they ware always very submissive so we never had any problems. They ware mainly outside dogs and they loved to be out in the yard however if the weather was bad (very cold or a lot of rain) my parents let them overnight inside also. They had their favorite spot to sleep, in the kitchen on the carpet near the radiator. The great thing was that if the main door was opened and you would tell them “outside” they would sit on the steps, right in the door but would not get in w/o permission. I have to admit that in my book these 2 ware the perfect dogs. We allowed them to go everywhere in the house but they always new their place in the pack. It was great.

I truly hope that my new puppy will be the same. :pray:

I was told by an animal behaviorist not to let my previous dog, Max, on the bed anymore when he started showing fearful aggression. So I banished him from the bed, felt evil for doing it, and unfortunately never saw a change in his behavior. So I don't know if removing a dog from your bed alone will solve dominance problems. Perhaps I didn't do it correctly, not sure, but for me, it was unsuccessful.

Wanted to comment on this: fear aggression as you describe happens when a dog gets into a situation that he thinks is scary, and the people who are supposed to protect him, don't. My dog has fear aggression as well; his "symptoms" are barking and lunging at other dogs when he's on leash. If he's off-leash, he'll tuck his tail and run away. Though it sounds like you don't have Max anymore, should you encounter this with any other dog (or if anyone else has this problem!), you have to figure out what makes your dog scared and then take control of the situation. Instead of looking at what's making the dog scared, and worrying about what's going on there, look at your dog. Chances are he's showing that he's afraid, by backing up, looking at you for help or if he's already figured out you're not going to help, he'll resort to trying to protect himself; by being aggressive. Putting your dog off the bed isn't going to help him learn that *you* are handling the situation and that there is nothing to be afraid of because *you* will protect him. Depending on what the dog is afraid of, your approach to showing him that you are in control of the situation and will protect him from his fears will differ.

Suzanne Clothier has written some wonderful articles on how to deal with certain behaviours, and I'd highly recommend you read through some of her work at http://flyingdogpress.com to see where you might have gone wrong or how to prevent this in the future. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to PM me.

Melissa

All of our dogs sleep in our bed with us. That's the only reason we bought a kingsize bed. We cuddle all night. They are also allowed on the couches, chairs, anywhere they want :) We get along just fine.