Generally, humans are advised to target eight hours’ sleep every night so that they are sufficiently reinvigorate for the next day. The average sleep of dogs is roughly 10.5 hours, a bit longer than the human norm but not drastically different.
Of course, this will vary depending on the breed of dog and its activity, but dogs enjoy what would seen a reasonably lengthy sleep – unlike giraffes or horses, who might only drift off for no more than a couple of hours, or bats, who can doze for up to 20 hours at a time.
While it hasn’t been proven that dogs dream in their sleep like we do, researchers believe that pooches also go through a dreaming process while sleeping.
Like us, dogs enter REM sleep and will have their most vivid dreams within 20-30 minutes of nodding off.
Researchers maintain that larger dogs have longer dreams while smaller pooches’ dreams are shorter yet more plentiful. If solid evidence of this theory is produced, it will be fascinating to discover.
The following infographic from Greyhounds As Pets explores the sleeping habits of numerous animals, dogs included, and it is quite interesting to see the variances in sleeping patterns between these different creatures.
For over a decade, Adrienne has been a freelance content writer and blogger who’s passion lies in anything related to dogs. Growing up, dogs were a very important part of family life in the Hardwick household. Now, Adrienne is the proud parent to two Swedish Vallhunds called Moose and Pumpkin.