Host: Where should a newly adopted dog sleep?
Kevin Simpson: As a general rule of thumb wherever you would normally keep your dog when he or she is unsupervised during the day also makes for a great place for the dogs to sleep. So for instance is now let and kept in a crate whenever you’ve left home. The crate makes an ideal place for them to sleep as well, they’re usually not on much activity going on, they can settle down, they can feel confident and comfortable in the surroundings of their den like environment and get some good restful sleep. But one thing to keep in mind is that they are pack creatures and so pack creatures move together and they sleep together so it is ideal for them to be able to be close to either the other family members in the home or also any other dogs that the dog may share the home with, so that they can have a sense of belonging, and that’s really important.
Now that’s said, that’s not to imply that the dog should be sleeping in bed with you especially when you have a newly adopted dog that you're just getting to know and you're giving them a chance to earn those privileges to be on the bed with you. So it is sort of a pack them and tidy where there’s sharing sleeping quarters with you per se but not the same level you know, the alpha, so to speak with the pack alpha which would be the humans in the family should also be at a higher height level than the dogs so they're sleeping together but not necessarily pressed up one on one. I mean in bed environment that’s something they can grow with their relationship but it’s not something that we would encourage people to do from the beginning.