There are benefits to sharing a bed with your pet

When heading off for a night’s slumber, does your pet follow? Perhaps the cat curls up at the end of your bed. Maybe the dog dives under the duvet or pops their head on your pillow. Alternatively, your pet might have their own devoted sleeping space.

While it might be enjoyable and relaxing to share resting time with your pet, it could come with risks to pet and human health, not to mention impacts on sleep hygiene and human relationships too.

Disturbed sleep

One challenge of sharing your bed with your pet could be disturbed sleep. The movement of sleeping partners (two or four-legged) may lead to reduced sleep efficiency. But shared sleeping areas can have positives. More than 80% of dogs examined in studies preferred to be close to people at night, suggesting a mutual benefit. Different species of pets also appear to spend time resting together, so if you have a multi-pet household, all might enjoy shared sleeping.

Bed bugs

Pets sometimes bring unwanted guests into our homes such as fleas, ticks, mites and lice. These ectoparasites might hop from our pets to us and either cause transient or more prolonged irritation. In extreme cases, they can transmit other, potentially serious diseases such as plague or “cat scratch disease”, an infection caused by bacteria in cat saliva.

Pets often also harbour internal parasites such as the roundworm Toxocara canis – a parasite that affects both cats and dogs – some of which can be passed to humans, resulting in illness.

Indeed, we can even share infections with our pets – including Covid – so it’s not all one-sided.

Allergies and injuries

Sharing intimate contact with pets does raise the potential for increasing allergic responses or injury risk. Minor, unintentional injuries such as scratches can occur. Contact with dust and dander from pet hair can be prolonged when in close proximity. This material can also accumulate in the environment, potentially increasing the risk of allergic reactions.

Keeping it clean

If you do share your bed with your pet, good hygiene and regular cleaning is a must. Advice suggests that at least weekly washing of bed sheets is good practice. If you share your bed with pets, washing bedclothes every three to four days is suggested.

Regular grooming and bathing

It can also support a positive human-pet bond and reduce the potential for spreading potential infection. The use of anti-parasitic treatments under veterinary advice can also minimise the carriage and spread of internal and external parasites to pet owners and other pets.