For thousands of years, dogs have been man’s best friend, evolving to intuitively cater to a human’s habits and emotions. If you’re wondering if your dog knows when you’re sleeping, we’ve got the answer you need!
While it’s not an easy task to determine exactly how smart a dog is, many researchers believe that an adult dog is equally as smart as a child aged 2–2.5 years. It’s a dog’s intelligence that allows them to learn the habits around the household, including their owner’s sleeping habits.
So yes, your dog can tell when you’re sleeping since they notice the changes in your behavior, like lying in bed with your eyes closed and breathing slowly.
Your Dog Even Knows When Bedtime Is
If you normally allow your dog to sleep in the same room as you and you typically go to bed at the same time each night, your dog probably heads toward the bedroom around the same time every night.
While your dog can’t tell time, they can learn when bedtime is. How your dog does this is thanks to environmental cues, like the degree of darkness in your home or how long it’s been dark outside.
Like most mammals, dogs have what’s called a circadian rhythm, which is an internal mechanism responsible for regulating the sleep-wake cycle on a 24-hour basis.
Dog Senses Are Much Like Ours
Like humans, dogs have five recognized senses including smell, touch, sounds, sight, and taste. However, these five senses in dogs aren’t exactly the same as they are in humans. For example, dogs can see better in the darkness than we can because they have more light-sensitive rods in their retinas. And dogs smell better than us, too, as a dog’s nose works up to 10,000 times better than ours.
When it comes to tasting things, we beat a dog’s sense of taste because we have more taste buds than them. When it comes to touch, dogs and humans are about the same. But when it pertains to hearing, dogs win again! A dog can pick up higher sound frequencies than we can and can hear at much longer distances as well.
In a nutshell, your dog sees, smells, touches, hears, and tastes to learn about their environment, much like you do. Even though we share the same senses as dogs, dogs hear better than us and can see better in the dark.
If you’ve felt like your dog was staring at you at night while you’re in bed, it’s completely possible that they were! Perhaps they were checking to see if you were awake by seeing if your eyes were open or if you were breathing like you do during the day. Maybe your pooch was wide awake and wanted to play, or perhaps they needed to go outside to relieve themselves. Unless you record yourself sleeping, you’ll likely never know!
Conclusion
Dogs are intelligent animals that make amazing family pets. Your pup knows a lot more about you than you may think! They know when you’re sleeping and can tell when you’re awake by how you look and act. The next time you think your dog may be staring at you while you’re lying in bed in the dark, you’ll probably be right because your beloved pal relies on all five senses to understand their surroundings.
Featured Image Credit: AnnaStills, Shutterstock
