Dog sleeping patterns?

DforDisaster

I'm wondering how long/often your puppies and dogs sleep for?

Percy sleeps from midnightish - 7am [AFAIK!], and then maybe a 2 hour nap in the morning and an hour or two in the afternoon and maybe a little nap in the evening.

He is only 4 months old, and we try and keep him busy enough during the day - a little bit of training, lots of playing with his toys, and two 15 minute walks during the day, so I assume this is why he takes a few naps?

Do dogs continue to sleep these kind of amounts as they grow into adults?

Piglet85

I can't speak for adult dogs, but our JRT is six months old and sleeps loads! Generally 9 hours a night, and then anything up to half the day as well in total. From what I gather, that's totally normal. According to our vet, even at this age most puppies will sleep 16-18 hours in 24, and that seems to be the case. If there's loads going on he will stay awake more, but he looks wrecked by the end of the day if he sleeps too little. So I wouldn't worry about trying to keep him awake or anything - if he's falling asleep, he probably needs it I'd say!

peasant

DforDisaster wrote: »

Do dogs continue to sleep these kind of amounts as they grow into adults?

Depends very much on how active you keep them.

On a wet weekend with nothing to do but reluctantly go for a pee when it becomes unavoidable our adult dogs have been known to sleep about 44 out of 48 hours (and even those four hours they only have one eye open )

During active days they can quite happily follow our sleeping patterns with only 6-7 hours during the night and no sleep during the day.

bluejelly

My 9 month old pup sleeps/rests about 14/15 hrs a day on average. They sleep more on days I work, less at wkds. My older lab is about the same, both are asleep now since 6pm as they didn't take any rest during the day as we had visitors. Like clockwork tho they woke at 9pm for the nightly treat

DforDisaster

Good to know! Its kind of handy cos it means I can get bits and pieces done while he naps.

I was a bit worried that maybe him sleeping half the day might be the cause/result of him not sleeping at night. (Like I said -- as far as I know he sleeps all night. He is always awake when I get down but he isn't a barker, and our floor has bear floorboards upstairs, so by the time I clatter down the stairs I never know whether he has been woken by the noise of me or whether he has been sitting there like that for hours!)

tk123

peasant wrote: »

Depends very much on how active you keep them.
.

+1 agree with this. When Lucy was a pup I'd be talking to other puppy owners who had their pups out for a good two hours a few times a day - they thought I was stone mad saying Lucy got 5 mins per month of age and that's all she needed. It's important imo for a dog to know how to settle and relax. My two have a walk in the morning and most evenings - apart from that they'd be asleep most of the day waking up for their dinner or to follow us into the other room and sleep in there!

Ashbx

I think as long as they are properly exercised, it doesn't really matter how many hours they sleep.

My two sleep the majority of their day but then they get two/three walks a day. So after each walk, they have a nap, have an hour meandering around and playing with a few toys and its already time for the next walk.

Gael23

Our Dog slept a good 16-18 hours a day as he got older and less healthy.
Usually from 11pm- 5am then up for a while,sleep from then to 8.30 or 9 when he would get up for breakfast and sleep for another 3 hours after. If the house was busy he would be up for the afternoon and would be gone by 7 for most of the evening. He died a few days after he turned 15 following 3 years of declining health so I cant exactly remember before that when he was well but they do sleep a good bit. Sometimes he wouldn't be really asleep, just contentedly relaxing.

IvySlayer

Puppies can sleep for 18 hours a day no problem