Sleep is the part of a dog's day nobody optimises, and it is the one most likely to explain a dog that is irritable, reactive on the lead, mouthy in the evening or unable to lie down while you eat. Chronic under-sleeping in dogs produces exactly what it produces in people: a shorter fuse and worse decisions.
It is also the easiest thing on this site to fix, because it costs nothing.
The numbers
Healthy adult dogs sleep roughly twelve to fourteen hours in twenty-four, including night-time and daytime naps. Puppies need considerably more, often eighteen to twenty hours, and they take it in short bursts. Elderly dogs drift upwards again, and large breeds generally sleep more than small ones.
Dogs sleep differently from people: lighter, in cycles that are much shorter, with frequent brief awakenings. That means interruptions cost more than they appear to, because a dog woken repeatedly never reaches the deeper stages where the restorative work happens.
A puppy that is grabbing ankles and biting hands at six in the evening is almost never under-exercised. It is overtired, in the same way and for the same reason as a toddler.
Where the bed goes
In a Luxembourg apartment this is the single most useful change most households can make. The worst place for a dog bed is beside the front door, where every footstep on the landing, every lift arrival and every parcel delivery lands directly in the dog's rest.
Put the main bed somewhere the dog can see the room but is not in a walkway, away from the entrance, away from a radiator and out of direct sun. Give a second place in the room where the household spends the evening, so the dog does not have to choose between resting and being with you.
Add quiet background sound if your building is noisy, and consider a raised or orthopaedic bed for older dogs and large breeds, which are the two groups that most often sleep badly on a thin mat on a hard floor.
Protecting the rest
- Nobody disturbs a sleeping dog, including children. If the dog must be moved, call it rather than reaching for it
- Build periods in the day when nothing happens, deliberately. Constant interaction is not enrichment
- Keep the evening predictable: walk, food, chew, quiet. A chaotic hour before bed produces a wired dog
- Do not train, play or feed in bursts right before the time you want the dog to settle
- For puppies, enforce naps. A pen or a crate in a quiet room, used kindly, prevents most of the evening chaos owners describe
The over-stimulation trap
There is a widespread belief that a difficult dog needs more exercise. Sometimes true, often not. A dog taken to a busy park twice a day, given an hour of ball throwing and then asked to relax in a flat is being kept in a state of high arousal, and the cure is frequently less input rather than more.
The signs of a chronically over-aroused dog: unable to lie down when nothing is happening, pacing, reacting to small noises, mouthing in the evening, grabbing toys and demanding activity, and sleeping only when completely exhausted.
Test it for two weeks. Keep the total walking time, but replace the high-speed activity with sniffing, add two or three enforced quiet periods behind a gate, and see what the evening looks like. Most households notice the difference within days.
The dog left alone all day
Dogs alone in a flat do sleep for part of the day, which is the reassuring half of the picture. The other half is that they sleep lightly, wake at every sound in the building, and cannot settle properly in the later hours when they are waiting.
A break in the middle of a long absence helps the sleep as much as the bladder: a dog that has been out, emptied, moved and greeted will usually sleep properly afterwards rather than listening to the corridor for another five hours.
When sleep is telling you something medical
Raise it with your vet if you see any of these rather than assuming age or habit:
- A marked change in how much the dog sleeps, in either direction
- Restlessness at night, pacing, or an older dog awake and disoriented in the small hours
- Difficulty getting comfortable, changing position constantly, or refusing to lie in the usual way
- Loud snoring that is new, or breathing that stops and restarts, particularly in flat-faced breeds
- Twitching that does not settle, or episodes that look like seizures during sleep
- A dog that stops using a bed it used for years, which often means it hurts to get in and out of it
Reversed sleep patterns in an older dog, awake at night and sleeping all day, are a recognised feature of canine cognitive dysfunction and are manageable. Treated early it goes better, and for the household it is often the difference between coping and not.
The practical version
Move the bed away from the door this week. Add two quiet periods to the day. Replace twenty minutes of ball throwing with twenty minutes of sniffing. Stop waking the dog for photographs and cuddles when it has just gone down.
None of that costs money, and for a surprising number of the dogs described to me as hyperactive it produces a calmer animal within a fortnight.
General information for dog owners in Luxembourg, not veterinary or legal advice. For your own dog, ask your vet, a qualified behaviourist or your commune. How this journal is written and checked.
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