Should My Dog Sleep in My Bed?

For most dogs, yes, and it will not undermine your training. The idea that letting a dog on the bed makes him think he is in charge is one of the most persistent bad ideas in this industry and there is no evidence behind it. If you want your dog in bed and your dog sleeps well there, do it. But there are five specific situations where the bed is a genuine problem, and if any of them describe your dog, keep him off it until you have fixed the underlying issue.

I say this as a trainer who runs a pretty structured program. Structure is about rules that are consistent, not about denying comfort. My own dog sleeps on the bed. The rule at my house is that he gets up when invited and off when told, and that rule holds anywhere in the house.

The five situations where the bed is a real problem

• Any guarding of the bed or of you on the bed. Stiffening, freezing, a hard stare, a low growl when your partner walks in or when you shift position. This is the big one. Bed guarding gets people bitten in the face because the dog is at head height and you are asleep. Off the bed until it is resolved, no exceptions.
• Not housebroken yet. A puppy in your bed at night is a puppy who cannot tell you he needs out. He needs a crate within arm's reach instead, which is better for the housebreaking anyway.
• A brand new dog in the first two weeks. You do not know this dog yet. You do not know how he handles being startled awake, or being moved in the night. Give it two weeks of watching him before you hand him the most intimate space in the house.
• A dog who cannot settle. If he is up and down all night, licking, repositioning, sighing, or pacing, he is not resting and neither are you. That dog needs a settle protocol and probably a vet check for pain or itching, not a spot on the mattress.
• Nighttime reactivity. Dogs who bark at every sound outside do it more from a bed by a window than from a crate in a hallway. If your dog is doing perimeter patrol from the pillow, move him.

The physical stuff people forget

Two practical issues that come up more than the behavior ones. Jumping off a tall bed onto a hard floor is a real injury risk for small breeds and for long backed dogs like dachshunds and corgis, and I have seen a dog with a torn cruciate from a nightly four foot drop. Put steps or a ramp there, or put the dog on a bed of his own. Second, if anyone in the house has allergies or asthma, a dog in the bedding is a meaningful exposure and the bedroom is the one room worth protecting.

Teach on and off before anything else

Whatever you decide, the dog needs to be able to get on and off the bed on your word. This takes about a week.

1. Pat the mattress and say up. When he gets on, pay him.
2. Say off and toss a treat onto the floor. As he lands, mark it and pay again.
3. Ten reps a day for five days. Keep it light and fast, no pushing or dragging.
4. Once both words work, stop tossing the treat on the off and pay from your hand once his feet are on the floor.

The reason this matters is not authority, it is practicality. You need to be able to get your dog off a bed at two in the morning without reaching for a collar, because reaching for a startled dog is how bites happen. A dog who moves on a word is a safe dog.

If you want him out and he is used to being in

Do not just close the door and let him scratch at it for a week. Put his new spot in the same room, right next to the bed, and make it worth having.

• Use an elevated cot or a real orthopedic bed. A thin mat on the floor next to a mattress is a downgrade and he knows it.
• Feed him on the new bed for a week. Every meal, on the spot, before you ask him to sleep there.
• Pay the settle. For the first three nights, quietly drop a treat on his bed every time you notice him lying on it. No commands, just payment.
• Expect three to seven nights of protest. It will not be pleasant and it will end if you are consistent. Letting him up on night four teaches him that four nights of complaining works.

What about the training arguments you have heard

The claim that bed access causes dominance or disobedience does not hold up. What does hold up is much more boring: dogs get sloppy where the rules are inconsistent. If your dog is allowed on the bed sometimes and shoved off other times with no cue either way, that inconsistency will show up in his behavior. It is the inconsistency doing the damage, not the mattress.

So the real answer is that this is your call, not a training rule. Decide, teach the two words, hold the line, and watch for the five red flags above.

The dog who can be trusted anywhere in the house, bed included, is the dog who has an off switch. That is a trainable skill and it is the thing that makes everything else easier. My free Calmer Dog blueprint covers the settle and place work I use to build it, and you can download it. Download the Calmer Dog blueprint

Ready to train your dog?

Every drill in this article comes from the WorldWide K9 Academy course library. If you want the full step by step system, start with the $5 intro course.