This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Sleeping alongside your dog probably doesn't disrupt your sleep as much as you might think, according to a study published Oct. 7, 2026, in the journal PLOS One by Ming Fei Li of the University of Toronto, Canada, Lavania Nagendran of the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada, and colleagues. It is intuitive to think that humans and their dogs affect each other's sleep schedules, but little research has been done in this area, and the results have been conflicting.
In this study, Li, Nagendran and colleagues examined the nighttime activity of 25 humans and their 38 dogs to investigate how they affected each other's nighttime experience for better or worse. Data collected over four weeks from activity monitors—worn on the wrist for humans and on the collar for dogs—showed that sharing the bed with a dog did not significantly affect sleep duration or sleep quality, even in cases where owners reported feeling like their dogs were disturbing their sleep. Nighttime activity was strongly correlated, with humans and their dogs commonly becoming active around the same time during the night.
But more often than not, the humans began moving before the dogs did, suggesting that owners are disturbing their dogs' sleep more than the other way around. Thus, the answer to the question of "who is disturbing whom" seems to be a bit of both. These results align with some previous research on the benefits and drawbacks of co-sleeping with dogs, but the authors note that this study includes a limited sample and no dogless control group.
Therefore, future studies will need to include more data on dogs of different ages and breeds. The authors add, "Our findings suggest that nighttime activity in humans and dogs is closely coupled and there may be discrepancies between objective and subjective sleep measures." Who is disrupting whom? Examining the nighttime activity patterns of humans and their dogs, PLOS One (2026).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0358453 MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile → Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing.
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