Adult dogs: 18 to 20 hours a day. Puppies: 20. Way more than the 12 to 14 you'll read elsewhere. More sleep equals less arousal, and most of the "naughty" behaviour I get emailed about comes from a dog running miles short of it. So the real question is why your dog isn't sleeping.
By Max Randall · IMDT Qualified · OCN Accredited · 1,000+ dogs helped
Sleep is your dog's reset. Everything exciting or scary in their day pushes arousal up, and sleep is what brings it back down. A dog getting their 18 to 20 hours starts each walk calm, shakes off big days, and can actually think when you ask something of them.
A dog running short doesn't look sleepy, though. They look naughty:
I hear about these dogs every day. They get called hyper, stubborn, "a nightmare", sometimes even "separation anxiety". But dogs are results of the lives they're living, and a lot of those lives are running on half the sleep they need. Which brings us to the actual question.
You can't make a dog sleep. Sleep happens on its own when the conditions are right. If your dog gets nowhere near 18 to 20 hours, one of three things is usually wrong, and all three are bigger than a "sleep problem".
Every breed was built to do a job. Employ your dog or they'll go self-employed: stealing, digging, shredding, barking at the fence. And a dog with an unfinished job stays on the clock. Dogs on the clock don't sleep.
Arousal works like nitro, not fuel. However tired the dog is, if something has spiked them, adrenaline keeps them up, restless and buzzing. A cold shower would do the same to you at 2am. And when arousal goes properly through the roof, that adrenaline can hang around in the blood for up to three days. One mad Saturday can wreck sleep until Tuesday.
This is the one that catches good owners out. Most dogs' days are full of what I call full stops: play, walk, visitors, dinner, then we expect them to just stop. A dog who's still buzzing when sleepy time arrives won't sleep, even if they're tired and fulfilled. That leftover buzz has to go somewhere, so it becomes the 9pm zoomies, the pillow sucking, the dog humping his bed after dinner. They're trying to bring themselves down, because the day didn't.
For a dog to sleep, three things have to be true at once: fulfilled, tired, and relatively calm when sleep time comes. Miss one and the sleep doesn't happen. So if your dog isn't sleeping, the sleep is a symptom. Something underneath, their needs, their arousal or the shape of their day, is out of balance. Sort that and sleep turns up on its own. Skip it and no amount of tiring them out will get you there.
Give your dog something calming: scattered food to search out, a chew, a lick mat. Then watch what happens.
Either way, the answer lives in your dog's day. Which is honestly good news. The day is the one thing you can change.
Sleep, needs, arousal and the shape of the day all pull on each other, and fixing one usually means touching the others. Inside MK9Plus I teach you the whole system, step by step, in the right order. It's how you learn to actually live with your dog.
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Members always ask how long this takes. I never trust timelines, dogs aren't washing machines. But you'll know it's working early, because the first sign is this:
Enzo, my rescue, came to me frustrated and easily aroused. Six really hard days out of seven. As his day got rebuilt, that went to five, then four, then three, down to a couple every two weeks.
Now? A million squirrels could be out on tomorrow's walk and it will hardly touch him, because when we get home, he just sleeps. That's what the right lifestyle looks like.
The ones owners actually ask me, answered straight.
Dogs that settle, switch off and sleep, because their day finally makes sense. That's the Whole Dog Approach. Start free, and see what a proper week of it does to your dog.
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Written by Max Randall, IMDT-qualified and OCN-accredited dog trainer · More free dog training guides · The philosophy: Don't De-Dog Your Dog · FAQ