Me and my girlfriend just got a puppy. She is about 6 weeks old. Is it a bad idea to let her sleep in bed with us, or are we setting ourselves up for disaster later. When I put her in the bathroom for night time she whimpers and whines. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dave

I have some experience in this but I don't have any expertise.
I think you are training the puppy to sleep in your bed but you don't say what breed it is.
If it is going to become a large dog that you don't want in the bed, the puppy should sleep elsewhere.
We had a beagle that was a year old when we got her. I don't know where she slept before we got her but she slept with my son when he was 13 to 17, then with us the rest of her life. She didn't cause any problem. When it was cold we would fight over her to get the warmth.
But we had a St. Bernard before that and he didn't sleep in the bed!
There are ways to train the dog to sleep elsewhere without the noise. I am sure you will hear from some others here about that. Good luck

You shouldn't allow it to be in the bed sleeping with you because it will get adapted to your room and in the future it will be hard to change the dogs environment.

The purists will say that you shouldn't let a dog sleep in bed with you, because it will potentially make the dog think that it is in charge. There is some truth to that, but a lot depends on the dog and you. I have a perfectly sweet dog that doesn't have a dominant bone in her body. I could easily let her sleep in my bed with no problems, except that she is a very large dog, and it just wouldn't be comfortable. Now, if you have a dog that is challenging you for dominance, having them in your bed is a very bad idea.

But another thing to consider is whether you and your girlfriend will be comfortable with the dog in the bed. Some people are, some aren't. I like to have animals curled up around me. But you may want to consider if you are planning on having kids and they get into the bed, or you need to be getting in and out a lot, if you want to be dealing with a sleeping dog that may make that more awkward. It's always harder to stop something than it is to not start it.

This is the reason why I no longer sleep in the bed with my husbang . Too many bodies in one bed one hubby and two 70+ labs

My rule is that if the dog will get off the bed without any protest, its fine. If the dog growls, or makes any complaint (or if it is a blanket chewer, etc.) then no dice. My husband and I actually had to build a king-size bed frame to accommodate both of us, several large dogs & two cats!

No pets in bed... period.

A friend who is a dog trainer says to train a puppy in a crate. Put it right by your bed at night. When the pup whimpers, give the crate a thump. Once the dog has learned that its crate is its den and goes there without fear, the bed is fine.

This worked beautifully with her Poodles, my Pug and Chihuahua. My Basenji cried all night for a week and I gave up, putting her crate where she wouldn't disturb anyone. She no longer cries and has accepted the crate as her sleep place.

In packs, dogs sleep together, but carol is right about the dog not being possessive over his spot. It's really important for dogs to have their 'space'.. it's a personal choice, I don't personally allow it because my dog has pee pee paws and rolls in dead salmon. He knows better, but he sleeps in it when I'm not home, I know it.

Well you my not have a girlfriend if you keep letting the puppy sleep with you. See that puppy will soon be a dog and depends on breed may be a big dog. So advice if you don't have a crate for your pet you should get one dogs youse them for a place to be safe and take breaks from there people it also helps with house breaking and if you go to work it is a safe place for the pet and you can crate dogs for 8 to 10 safely a day :)

Size doesn't always matter, I have a llasa apsa, and when he sleeps he sprawls out taking up the whole bed. I adopted him from animal rescue and he always slept next to me, but than my fiancé moved in... there is no room for him... now he has his own pull out dog couch on the floor of the bedroom. That way his comfortable, but not locked alone in a doggie crate. Good thing about dogs, that adapt to change rather well.

I would strongly advise you not to let your dog sleep in the same bed with you. For a few reasons they can become territorially aggressive or more dominant and think they are on the same level as you, also(I can't believe I'm saying this I sound too much like my mom) the dog comes in all dirty then jumps up on the bed, and what about the possibility of worms and fleas. Also one reason I don't let my dog sleep on my bed is the hair he's a husky and don't think those videos on YouTube are fake I could go outside right now and pull out easily 4 sobeys bags of hair. So instead my dog sleeps on his own blanket beside my bed.

I am having to make the same decision about where to have our new puppy sleep. He'll be coming home with us in just a few weeks, when he turns 2 months old.

He's an english cocker spaniel, so the size could work. But here are my reservations:


-he won't be potty trained yet, so won't he sometimes pee in the bed?

-we live in a city in italy, so I don't know if his long, beautiful fur and bare feet are going to be dragging unhealthy yucky things and germs into bed

-he'd probably wind up sleeping in the middle of us like our old cat did, which means less physical contact with my hubby

-i don't want him not to be able to sleep in a normal dog bed. Sometimes we have guests, and we give up our bed to them, while we sleep on an extra mattress, and I'd hate to have my hubby's old world parents getting spooked by our doggie popping between their sheets

On the other hand, I would LOVE to cuddle next to our pup every night. I think it's good for the soul.

We want our puppy to learn to like his crate and use it as a safe den. It's really much better for dogs to be used to crates for if and when they have to stay at the vet's overnight, they're at the groomer's, or if they have to stay in a kennel during a trip away from home.

If we do decide to use the crate, I have come up with an idea for the first night. He'll stay in the crate, and I'll pull up a mattress to sleep next to the crate on the first night. The crate will be positioned near our bed anyway, but this might be easier on him during his first night without his mom and littermates to snuggle up on.

I would love to hear what you all think, especially if you've had experience with either method.


p.s. bushg is absolutely right. Crates are NOT for long-term day use. They can be used at night or for an hour every now and then, but never for 8-10 hours a day as dashhound lover wrote.

Make sure the dog dosen't have fleas or tick because she might give them to you! You could also try to get her to sleep in a doggy bed next to your's.

I allow one of my dogs on the bed - for naps. For bedtime, both dogs have crates and love them. They find them a very secure place to get away from the world. I simply tell them to "go to bed," and they do. This is also great when you have an influx of company or kids or other weird happenings. They stay in bed all night, but they can hear if there's something hinky going on and they bark to wake me up.

As for the crying - what worked for me was putting a t-shirt I had worn into the crate with them. My little one burrowed under it. The other curled up on top of it. A warm corn bag is a nice companion for a pup (or a kitten).

I don't want dogs in my bed at night. If action should happen, I don't want interference. ;)

Good luck with your fur kid! :)

We made the mistake of letting our dogs sleep with us and then try to retrain them not to when they got bigger. The retraining took some time and mostly worked. Our border collie will wait until we fall asleep and then slowly and quietly get up on the bed. It's funny to watch him when he thinks we're sound asleep, one paw on the bed, wait, second paw on the bed, wait, quick quite jump, wait, lay down and sit still, hope that no one noticed. I just don't have the heart to kick him off when he went through so much trouble to get there. :)

Good luck with your pup.

Won't a puppy that young pee in the bed and have accidents, just like babies and little kids do?

Not usually, dogs are pretty good about not peeing in their sleeping place, in fact most pups won't even pee in their kennel. Just make sure that he/she doesn't drink too much water before bedtime, take him/her outside right before bed and you should be okay. If you are concerned and are adamant about letting pup sleep with you, then put a plastic pad on top of the matteress or under the pup.

I personally don't think it's a great idea to let puppy sleep with you, once you start it's hard to break the habit. With our first dog we crate trained, once he got the hang of that we let him roam free at night, he's always slept beside our bed on the floor, the second one is the one that sneaks on the bed, but he's a rescue and was abused, we tend to overlook allot of things that he does because of that. I know, big softie, but if you looked in to his eyes you couldn't get mad either. ;)

When I first brought my pup home, I bought a big comfy pillow, put it on the floor, and put some of her new treats and toys on top of it. I lead her over to it often, and would repeat the word "bedtime". I would sit near her, but give her a firm command "bedtime", when she tried to leave.

I would move her pillow into different places, so that she would understand that it was her place to sleep, and now she loves her pillow. Sometimes she even gets annoyed with me now when I wash her pillow, because she knows that is her bed!

She has slept on her pillow from day one, on the floor, near me. (I do invite her up into my bed for a short time before sleep, but she jumps down soon, for her pillow) I think if you make the rules known from day one, and establish who is the pack leader, you shouldn't have too many problems with a young puppy.

I don't think it's a good idea to keep your dog confined in a "room". You are better off with a small kennel, in that case. The smaller the space, the less likely your pet is, to get anxious. If your pet has space to roam at night, that is when it will be a problem. That's probably when all the whining and crying will start.

We have two small dogs, ages 7 & 10 that have been sleeping with us in our beds for years. One with us and one with my daughter. Life was wonderful without too many problems until recently when my daughter got married and left the dog with us and threw the dog into emotional issues and the dog sleeping in our bed is now much older and is having arthritis and older age doggie issues and suddenly our dogs sleeping in our beds have presented many problems that seemed harmless in the beginning. I've since learned the hard way that we are feeding more of our emmotional issues and comforting ourselves more by allowing our pets to be in our beds as... well... let's face it... "They are our Babies Aren't They?". Well... Yes and No! They are our babies but they need a space of their own and they HAVE to know who is dominant in the grand scheme of things. It's the fact that they have an "Order in the Pact" issue that has to resolved more than we do. I assumed it was going to be a VERY hard habit to break when in reality it was not that hard to break at all. I did as instructed and put bedding for each dog in a designated area of each bedroom they were used to sleeping in. I told each dog it was time to go "Night Night" and put her in her bed. I took away the foot stool that helped lola get into my daughters bed, said goodnight and closed the door as we've always done. She never cried or wimpered. She just walked around a bit and then got into her bed and slept all night. On the other hand, I put Tippi in her bed and said goodnight and I got into my bed and she wimpered and cried a little bit, so I got up two to three times to put her back into her bed and repeated it was time for "night night" and I got back into my bed and we all went to sleep. She got up twice during the night and scratched on my bed for me to let her in, and I simply stayed in my bed, put my arm down and gave her a "QUICK" pet on her head and neck and whispered for her to go back to her bed as I pointed to her bed and she went back to her bed and finally slept through the rest of the night. Each night was less and less on the wimpering until about the fourth night when she slept all night and has continued to do so since then. Although I miss her warmth and the security of knowing she was beside me, I now realize how much better we all sleep at night now and I don't get bit in the middle of the night when I roll or touch her wrong with the arthritis issues she's dealing with now. Hope this help!