Pets especially puppies love sleeping with their owners. No matter how warm and comfortable their crate is, they would prefer snuggling into your covers. In such a case what do you do? Is it safe to have pets in your bed?
Sleeping with pets isn't uncommon. According to a recent survey of pet owners by the American Pet Products Association, nearly half of dogs sleep in their owner's beds. From the survey, 62% of small dogs, 41% of medium-sized dogs and 32% of large dogs sleep with their owners.
The survey also found that 62% of cats sleep with their adult owners, and another 13% of cats sleep with children.
Derek Damin of Kentuckiana Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in Louisville, Ky., says people who suffer from pet allergies or people who are asthmatic should not sleep with their dog or cat or even allow them in the bedroom.
"Use a HEPA filter and keep them out of the bedroom to give your nose a few hours a day to recover," Damin says.
Damin says most pet lovers won't kick out companions, even if they discover their pets are causing allergy problems. For those people he recommends allergy shots to build up a tolerance to the pet dander that causes allergic reactions.
Damin, who has had his miniature dachshund says there’s no issue with having your dog in bed with you as long as you aren’t allergic.
"It's fine as long as it doesn't disturb your sleep."
Pets Can Disturb your sleep
Which brings up another problem with sharing the bed with a pet -- they can disturb your sleep. A study released by the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center found that about half the patients in the study had a dog or cat, and 53% of those pet owners said their pets disturbed their sleep in some way nightly.
"I've had patients that I've spent visit after visit going over their insomnia problems, trying to figure out what's happening, then I find out they have a dog that's scratching all night," says Lisa Shives, MD, medical director of Northshore Sleep Medicine, a sleep center outside Chicago,
Shives recommends that people who find it hard to sleep at night should consider keeping pets out of the bedroom.

Can Pets Help Sleep?
But for people with no problem falling or staying asleep, Shives says it's fine to allow a dog or cat in the bed.
"There are all kinds of medical benefits to having a pet," says Shives, who sleeps with her 45-pound dog. "And some people might feel safer or calmer with a dog in their bed."
Candace Hunziker of Kennesaw, Ga, says that's exactly why she sleeps with her Labrador retriever mix.
"She sleeps against me and she has very rhythmic breathing and it just puts me out," Hunziker says. "I have insomnia, my whole family does, and we all sleep with dogs. She helps puts me to sleep."

And then there's the whole matter of intimacy, with a pet in the bed. Can it interfere with your sex life? That depends, say Elizabeth and Charles Schmitz, love and marriage experts who wrote "Golden Anniversaries: The Seven Secrets of Successful Marriage."
"Many, many of our successful couples have pets and many sleep with them," Elizabeth Schmitz says.
But how they deal with the issue of intimacy varies, she says.
"Some put them outside the bedroom because they don't want them to watch," she says. "Some give them a treat to distract them. Some don't mind if the pet stays on the bed."
Charles Schmitz says the biggest issue is how both people feel about the pet being there.
"If one person is fine with the dog, but the other isn't, then you've got a problem," he says. "You absolutely have to talk about it and make sure both people are comfortable with the situation."
And it's also important that pets don't physically come between a couple at night, they say.
"The snuggling and the holding and the touching is critical," Elizabeth Schmitz says. "It's one of the seven secrets of a successful marriage. It's more important than sex."

Getting a Cat Out of Your Bed
And even when people finally make the hard decision to eject their pet from the bed, most find it's not an easy task.
Ingrid Johnson, a veterinary technician and consultant on feline behavior at a clinic in Marietta, Ga., says she advises clients to never let their cat in their bedroom if they don't want to sleep with the cat. She says for cats it's all or nothing, so the door must always be open to them, or never open to them.
"If you suddenly shut a cat out of the bedroom, they can get very frustrated and start displaying destructive behavior," Johnson says. "Cats don't react well if you take away territory."
But if a cat that sleeps with its owner must suddenly be banned, Johnson recommends giving the cat something else to do at night. Try giving kitty foraging toys to play with that feed her kibble, or put a cat condo by a window with a light outside.
"All the moths and bugs flying around the light right outside that window is like reality TV for cats," she says.

Getting a Dog Out of Your Bed
Dog trainer Victoria Stilwell says if your dog has no behavioral problems then it's OK to let him sleep in your bed. In fact, from the dog's standpoint, it's a compliment.
"Dogs only sleep with people or dogs they trust," says Stilwell, star of the TV show "It's Me or the Dog."
Stilwell adds that aggressive dogs should not be allowed on beds, stating that if pets become a problem, they have to get off the bed.
That was the case with a couple that Stillwell worked with who slept with three giant, male mastiffs. One of the dogs started lunging at their toddler when she approached the bed, so Stilwell bought three extra large dog beds and taught the dogs to get off the bed on command.
"Make it a game to get off the bed, using lots of praise and petting," Stilwell says. "They get no attention on the bed. Only on the floor."
After a while, when the dogs were ordered off the bed, they got down, although Stilwell says it was at least two weeks before the dogs didn't attempt to get back on the bed.
"You're going to have a few sleepless nights," she says, "but you've got to stick with it."

Source: http://www.healthdiary365.com/2017/11/08/should-you-have-pets-in-your-bed/

On the issue of people who have asthma and those with pet allergies, there is another solution. These people can still get to have their pets in their beds.

But they can't just have any dog or cat breed. They need to get the hypoallergenic breeds such as the Poodle, Maltese, Goldendoodle, Bernedoodle and the barkless Basenji from Central Africa.

However, the hypoallergenic dogs and cat breeds are not 100% hypoallergenic. No breed is. But some non-shedding breeds such as Poodles are well tolerated by many allergy sufferers. You can read more about allergy free dogs and cats at https://www.hypoallergenicdogsnames.com/