与狗同眠，狗好你也好
对大多数美国人来说，狗已经不再屈居狗窝了。据行会组织美国宠物用品协会(American Pet Products Association)称，将近60%的养狗人士表示他们视宠物为自己的孩子或家庭的一员。并且许多人会让自己的狗蜷在主人床上睡觉，往往还会睡在主人身边。
But is sleeping in the same bed with your dog a good idea? Wouldn’t they be disruptive to our sleep?
但和你的狗睡在同一张床上是个好主意吗?它们是否会扰乱我们的睡眠?
According to a recent study, not really. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix studied 40 dogs (none were puppies) who slept in the bedroom with their owners. The humans were all generally good sleepers, with no known sleep disorders.
根据最近的一项研究，不存在这个问题。菲尼克斯梅奥诊所(Mayo Clinic)的研究人员对40只与主人一起睡在卧室里的狗做了研究(全部为成年犬)。这些主人总体都有着良好的睡眠，没有已知的睡眠失调症。
The dogs wore a device called a Fitbark, an activity tracker that attaches to the collar and records whether an animal is at rest and sleeping or active and at play. The people wore an Actiwatch 2, an activity monitor that records people’s movements and whether they are sleeping soundly or not. Both monitors were set to sample movement every minute, while the humans also kept a sleep diary.
犬只们会佩戴一个安装在项圈上的FITBARK运动跟踪器，可记录动物是在休息、睡眠还是活跃、玩耍。主人则佩戴可记录人类活动并检测他们是否在熟睡的Actiwatch2运动监控器。两种监控器每分钟都会发送活动样例，与此同时，人类还会写睡眠日记。
Over seven days of testing, the researchers found that with a dog in the bedroom, both the humans and the dogs slept reasonably well. Humans had a mean sleep efficiency, or the percentage of time spent asleep while in bed, of 81 percent, while dogs had a sleep efficiency of 85 percent. Levels over 80 percent are generally considered satisfactory. People slept slightly better when the dog was off the bed; dogs slept the same whether they were on the bed or in another location in the bedroom.
经过七天的测试，研究人员发现，让狗睡在卧室，人和狗都能睡得不错。人类的睡眠效率，也就是床上时间里处于睡眠状态的占比，是81%，犬只的睡眠效率为85%。水平超过80%通常会被认为令人满意。当宠物不在床上睡觉时，主人的睡眠稍好;而狗狗不论是在床上还是在卧室的其他地方，睡眠都一样。
“This goes against the lore that you should have the dog sleep elsewhere,” and not in the bedroom, said Dr. Lois E. Krahn, the study’s senior author and a psychiatrist and sleep medicine specialist at the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic. Her 6-year-old golden retriever, Phoebe, routinely sleeps on the floor in the bedroom — and in the colder months joins her and her husband on their bed. Both the dog and the people, she said, sleep fine.
该研究的资深作者、梅奥诊所睡眠医学中心(Center for Sleep Medicine)的精神病专家兼睡眠医学专家洛伊丝·E·克拉恩(Lois E. Krahn)博士表示，“这打破了不应该让狗睡在卧室、应该睡在别的地方的说法”。她6岁的金毛猎犬菲比(Phoebe)经常睡在卧室的地板上——在寒冷的月份里，菲比和她以及丈夫一起睡在床上。她说，狗和人都睡得很好。
In an earlier study from 2015, Dr. Krahn and her colleagues asked patients who had visited the Mayo Clinic’s sleep clinic whether they owned dogs, cats or other pets. About half did, with many owning more than one. Forty-one percent said they perceived their pet as unobtrusive or beneficial to their sleep, compared to 20 percent who said their pet was disruptive. That study was self-reported, and “we can’t quite trust people to have an accurate report or even be able to accurately observe their feelings for their pets,” Dr. Krahn said. “It’s sort of like a parent’s feelings for their child. I wanted to have objective data.” Hence the recent follow-up report that used activity monitors to get objective data.
在2015年的一项较早的研究中，克拉恩和同事们询问梅奥诊所睡眠诊所的一些患者是否拥有狗、猫或其他宠物。约半数的患者拥有这类宠物，许多病人拥有一只以上宠物。41%的患者表示，他们认为宠物对睡眠没有干扰，甚至有利于睡眠，另有20%的患者认为宠物对睡眠有干扰。克拉恩表示，那项研究采取的是自我报告的形式，“我们不能完全相信人们能提供准确的报告，他们甚至不能准确地观察自己对宠物的感受”，“这有点像父母对孩子的感觉。我想获得客观数据”。所以，前不久，他们进行了跟踪研究，使用活动监视器来获取客观数据。
Where the pet sleeps “depends on the animal’s temperament,” said Dr. Carlo Siracusa, a veterinarian and the director of animal behavioral science at Penn Vet in Philadelphia. “There are dogs that tend to be more reactive to stimuli. So, for example, if the dog is on the bed and the owner turns and inadvertently hits the dog with the leg, some dogs will get startled and react out of fear,” growling or barking and waking the sleeper, he said. Other dogs aren’t bothered at all. “If there are no problems and the owner is happy with letting the pet in the bedroom, or on the bed, it’s fine with me.”
费城的宾夕法尼亚州兽医研究中心(Penn Vet)的兽医兼动物行为学主任卡洛·西拉库萨博士(Carlo Siracusa)表示，宠物在哪里睡觉“取决于动物的性情”，“有些狗对外界刺激的反应比较强烈。所以，如果狗睡在床上，主人一翻身，无意中踢到了狗，有些狗会被吓到，因为恐惧而做出反应”——咆哮或吠叫，吵醒睡眠者。也有些狗一点都不受影响。“如果没出现什么问题，主人乐意让宠物在卧室里睡，或者在床上睡，我觉得没什么问题。”
He added that a dog sleeping in the same room or bed with humans won’t make Sparky think he’s top dog. “Dogs can distinguish between the relationship with its human fellows and other dogs, and the way in which they regulate their interactions with humans in the house is not trying to establish a hierarchy,” he said.
他还表示，和人类睡在同一个房间或同一张床上并不会让狗觉得自己很了不起。“狗知道自己与人类的关系与它们与其他狗的关系不一样，它们调节自己与家中人类的互动，并不是为了建立等级关系，”他说。
Some dogs may not belong in the bedroom, such as very young or old pets who may not sleep through the night, a sick pet or a reactive pet who might become aggressive when startled or woken up suddenly. Also, if a new baby is entering the family and will sleep in the same bedroom as the parents, Dr. Siracusa said, that might no longer be a good place for the pet to sleep – not because of concerns of a pet smothering a baby, he said, but because space may be an issue with that many human and furry bodies in one room.
有些狗并不适合待在卧室，比如非常年轻或年老的宠物，可能无法安睡一整晚，或是生病的宠物、活跃的宠物，它们在受到惊吓或突然醒来时可能会带有攻击性。此外，西拉库萨表示，如果家里新添了宝宝并且将和父母睡同一间房，可能卧室就不再是一个适合让宠物睡觉的好地方了——他说那并不是出于担心宠物会使婴儿窒息，而是因为那么多人和毛茸茸的身体挤在一个屋子里，空间可能是个问题。
If a pet is already sleeping in your bed or in the bedroom and interfering with your sleep, you can take steps to transition a pet out of the bedroom. Dr. Siracusa said it is best to make the transition a gradual one rather than abruptly kicking the pet out of the bed or bedroom. That may mean first moving a dog from the human bed to a comfortable spot elsewhere in the bedroom, and then moving the pet just outside the door. The key is to create a similar sleeping experience for the pet. Dogs may be attracted to humans’ beds, especially if they’re elevated, “because they are comfortable and strategically in a good position,” letting dogs keep watch over their surroundings, Dr. Siracusa said. Creating an equally strategic place might mean that it’s also elevated, or that it has coverings that the dog can burrow under, or that it is near a heater that can simulate the warmth of the people in the humans’ bed.
如果宠物已经睡在了你的床上或卧室里，并且影响了你的睡眠，你可以一步步地把宠物从卧室中转移出去。西拉库萨说，最好是循序渐进的转移，而不是突然就把宠物踢下床或丢出卧室。这可能意味着，首先要让狗离开床，转移到卧室内其他舒适的地方，然后才把宠物移到门边。关键是要为宠物创造一个相似的睡眠体验。他说，狗可能会被人的床铺吸引，尤其是当它们的位置较高时，“因为它们会感到舒服，并且在战略上处于有利位置”，能让它们观察到周围的环境。创造一个同样具有战略性的位置，有可能意味着也需要有高度，或者有能让狗钻进去的被褥，或者靠近暖气片，模拟出人类在床上的温度。
Some dogs will never want to sleep with their owners, especially if the owner snores or moves around a lot at night. “When dogs sleep, they want a safe space and don’t want to be bothered,” just like people, he said.
有些狗从来不想和主人一起睡觉，尤其是当他们的主人晚上会打鼾或者会经常动来动去的时候。“狗睡觉的时候想要一个安全的空间，不想被打扰，”就和人一样，他说。
Figuring out where a new dog should sleep can take some time. When Natalie Hastings and her husband adopted Mikey, a 70-pound boxer bulldog mix, they tried letting him sleep in the bed at first, but he shifted around so much they moved him onto a couch. But as Mikey became more settled in their home and he slept more soundly through the night, that changed. He started sleeping in the bed with Mrs. Hastings when her husband traveled for work. Now he’s there all the time and, Mrs. Hastings says, helps her fall asleep faster.
要为新来的狗找好睡觉的地方可能会费些时间。当娜塔莉·哈斯廷斯(Natalie Hastings)和丈夫把这条70磅重的斗牛拳师混血犬米奇(Mikey)领养回家时，他们一开始曾试过让它睡在床上，但它动静太多，他们便把它移到了沙发上。但等到米奇对这个家更加适应，晚上睡得更加安稳的时候，就不再这样了。每当丈夫出差，它就会和哈斯廷斯夫人一起在床上睡觉。哈斯廷斯夫人说，它现在一直在床上睡了，能帮她更快入睡。
“I have trouble settling down, and he’s got very rhythmic breathing,” she said of Mikey. “It’s almost like white noise. And he’s really warm.”
“我很难平静下来，而它的呼吸又很有节奏感，”她这样评价米奇。“和白噪音差不多。并且它真的很暖和。”
Dr. Krahn said the next step in her research is to study a larger group of dogs and their owners, and also to see whether having one or two humans in the bed makes a difference.
克拉恩说，她下一步会对更多的犬只及其主人进行研究，并观察床上有一个人或两个人是否会有差别。
She’d also like to do a similar study on cats, though they, of course, are entirely different animals. In addition to Phoebe, she has a 4-year-old cat, Oliver, who is allowed anywhere in the house except the bedroom because “the cat wanders, scratches, meows,” she said. While most dogs can be trained, “I think cats do what they want. If that cat is hungry in the middle of the night, that cat does not care” about waking you up, she said.
她还想对猫做一个类似研究，尽管两者显然是完全不同的动物。除了菲比之外，她还有一只4岁的猫——奥利弗(Oliver)。它可以在全家除了卧室以外的任何地方睡觉，因为“这只猫会到处溜达、抓挠、喵喵叫，”她说。大多数的狗可以被驯化，但“我认为猫会做自己想做的事情。如果它们半夜饿了，它们并不介意”吵醒你，她说。
Oliver the cat declined to comment.
猫咪奥利弗拒绝置评。
