Dog Owners: 7 Reasons Why Sleep is as Important as Exercise
As a dog owner, one of the main concerns for your dog is their health. The way to achieve this is to ensure they are well-fed, exercised, and get enough quality sleep. However, many dog owners concentrate more on the exercise part and ignore the essence of enough sleep. To ensure your dog lives happily and healthily, it must get enough rest. Here are some of the reasons why.
Prevent ailments
Like human beings, sleep is essential for dogs to lead a healthy life, safe from diseases. Lack of adequate sleep for your dog wreaks havoc on its immune system, ultimately reducing its ability to fight infections. As a result, your fury animal often falls ill, reducing its quality of life. Enough sleep, just like exercise, boosts the animal's immune system and prevents frequent illnesses. Ensure you monitor the amount of sleep your dog gets, according to its age, gender, and size, and create a routine that works.
Help them heal from diseases
Dogs get sick quite often, and especially with old age. Suppose your dog is ailing from a disease or is experiencing joint problems. In that case, it is essential to ensure it gets enough sleep from physical activity to prevent further discomfort or pain. Enough sleep also plays a significant role in fastening the healing process. However, factors such as finding a balance between exercise and rest for your dogs and feeding them the right foods are also vital in the healing process.
Visit dogfoodcare.com to determine the best food for your dog without upsetting their digestive system for quality sleep. Similarly, if you're unsure how much exercise your dog should be getting, consult with your vet.
Keep their energy at bay
Even if you're exercising your adult dog by taking it out for long walks, runs, or playing games like fetch for many hours, it can still get into mischief if you don't keep it occupied. You don't realize that with too much exercise, you turn your dog into an athlete, meaning it gains more energy. In turn, this tires you as well as damages your dog's joints. Although exercise is essential to keep it healthy, do it in moderation.
Invariably, if your dog exercises too much, one of the consequences is a dog that hardly sleeps. As a result, your tired dog becomes barky, stressed, hyperactive, and finds it challenging to learn. What your dog needs when it has too much energy is more sleep. Get your dog into a sleeping routine in a good area where there are minimal to no distractions. You can find a licking mat or play soothing music for your furry best friend to sleep, and eventually, with a balance of moderate brain games and walks, he will begin to relax.
Make up for lost REM
Although dogs sleep more hours than their owners, it is essential because they tend to sleep in small bursts throughout the night and daytime. For human beings, at night, they sleep in one long stretch, spending about 25% of that time in REM (Rapid-eye Movement). During this time, human beings dream as well as provide energy to their bodies and brains. However, dogs only get about 10% of REM in their sleep because they aren't deep sleepers. Dogs can sleep whenever and wherever and wake up on notice, like when the doorbell rings. For this reason, dogs need restorative sleep during the day.
Boost growth
If your dog is still a puppy, it needs more sleep than adult dogs for it to grow. On average, a 16-week old puppy requires 11.2 to 14 or more hours of sleep daily. For puppies younger than 16 weeks, they need 18 to 20 hours of sleep to support the development of their brains and bodies. At one year, your puppy can take up the sleeping routine of an adult dog. However, it doesn’t mean that they don't need enough sleep.
Keep them well-rested
Dogs gain positively from exercise; it creates an opportunity for you two to band during the walks, games, and training. However, activity and going out into the world, for example, the park, can also be overwhelming for them. New and arousing experiences, such as playing with other dogs, exercising, and sniffing opportunities, can cause this.
Suppose your dog has had a negative experience while outdoors; the outdoor world can be stressful, which is unhealthy. In such situations, your dog's body releases cortisol, a stress hormone; too much of it can have negative implications, such as pancreatitis, digestive and skin issues, and a repressed immune system.
You can ensure your dog doesn’t have excess cortisol in its system by giving it rest days and allowing it to sleep. This way, it is well rested and can produce feel-good hormones to keep it happy and healthy.
Boost their ability to process life skills
Sleep is vital for your pet’s mental growth, just as its physical growth. Without enough rest, your dog becomes restless, hence lethargic. Consequently, your dog develops behavioral issues like aggression, irritability, and separation anxiety. On the other hand, if you're constantly monitoring your dog's amount of sleep to ensure it's adequate, your fury animal develops good behavioral and social skills that are necessary for it, just as they are for you.
Training your dog can overtire it as this requires a lot of mental focus and practice. With enough natural sleep, your dog gains the ability to focus during training. Additionally, enough rest boosts your dog’s memory, aiding in its training. At the end of it, your efforts bear fruit because your fury best friend becomes a well-behaved, healthy, and happy companion.
Many questions surround how much sleep is enough for your dog, the hours it should rest, and how much sleep is too much sleep. It all depends on your dog's breed, size, and age; there is no one-size-fits-all formula to decide the number of sleeping hours. However, it's essential to understand the value of your dog getting enough sleep. To give your fury quality sleep, get the right dog bed that suits your pet and home.