Sleeping pet - Should you wake him up?

When you see your sleeping pet you most likely can not believe how cute he is in that moment. But did you know that pets, like people, need sleep to learn better?

People think of animals as creatures that would sleep anywhere but most of them will find a nice comfortable spot to sleep in (or on).

Even in the wild some animals will not go to sleep until they found a suitable place, warm and hidden.

Every animal has a certain position it will sleep in. A cat will find a soft pillow and sleep on it, sometimes in craziest positions.

A parrot will sleep standing on a perch.

Some wild animals look very funny when they sleep and they do it in all sorts of positions, lion will sleep on his back, a kangaroo on the side and a bat will sleep upside down.

Do his sleeping habits affect you?

With different positions there are also different lengths of sleep. I would say that sleeping pet that spends the most time in the land of dreams is a cat. Cats can sleep 13 hours a day.

For example, hamsters are nocturnal pets. That means that they are most likely to be awake all night while asleep all day. So if you want to play with your pet during the day, skip a hamster.

Dogs can sleep a lot and it mostly depends on the activity they have during a day. Some people say dogs can sleep 15 or even 17 hours a day but I would say that is not completely true. If your dog has enough activities during a day and he has a healthy diet, he should not sleep as much.

Based on experience with our dogs we would say that he will copy your sleep behavior. He will sleep all night when you are asleep and maybe take a nap while you are resting. He might sleep more while you are out of the house but he will probably love spending time with you and will be awake while you are at home.

Budgie parakeets sleep standing up. They put their head in their feathers but they react to every sound, so unless you are looking at him all the time, with no sudden moves, you probably will not even know when he is sleeping. These cute birds will sleep during night and take naps during day, especially if they are very active.

Sleeping pet is not all that interesting to kids but it is important for us to explain to our children how sleep is important for little animals. Young animals will sleep more than grown up ones.

Kids are usually impatient and when they want to play with their pets they want to do it then and not later. It would help comparing them to pets as it could give them a better picture, if a kid really likes to sleep this might work out great.

One more fact to include while explaining this to a kid - a pet that did not sleep enough is very aggravated and could bite.

Pet sleep phases

Like humans, sleeping pet goes through two phases of dream. One with dreams and the other one a deep sleep phase. The first one is more known as REM phase and the brain is working the same way as when being awake. The imagination is vivid and the eyes are moving very fast behind the eye lids.

If you have ever seen your sleeping pet moving its little paws in sleep, he was in REM phase.

While in deep sleep, sleeping pet is less active. But their immune system is very active then. That is when the growth hormone is excreting. This hormone is extremely important for the development of young pets. With adult pets it help regenerate the cells.

Some research showed that sleep for animals is as important as for humans. It rests and regenerates - mentally and physically.

Sleeping enough is the key for the ability to study and remember. In simple words - while you sleep you get smarter. Same goes for pets.

Sleep and learn

How all of this applies to your pet? Some birds will repeat their song in the sleep so they would remember it faster.

If you are training your cat, after the lesson you should let it sleep because their brain activity will be doubled compared to cats that stayed awake. The most important thing is that the memorizing part of the lesson you just thought your cat (or another pet) was actually happening in the phase of sleep when the brain activity is the lowest - the deep sleep.

Still, it is a secret how the process exactly is working and as we know, scientists will need to work a lot more to unveil all sleeping pet secrets for us pet lovers.

But we can use the existing knowledge and learn to let our pets sleep when they need to. And as much as they are cute when sleepy, we should let them rest so they would be happy when they wake up.

Related: Interesting animal facts