As someone who is trying to learn about dogs and visits this site regularly, I was under the impression that allowing dogs to sleep with you could create dominance problems. Especially for the children in the house. When I do get a dog again, I was planning on keeping the dog off the furniture and beds, to decrease the chances for the dog to think he (or she) is dominant to the kids. Is this not necessary?

It can aggravate the possibility Minaldo. If you met my dog and watched him at all you would understand why I can get away with it. He is very submissive and soft as well. I am also single with no children, so the issue is not the same. When in doubt, it is much easier to just not allow the dog to start on the furniture than it is to get them off of it later. If the dog is not dominant in nature, the dog will not magically become dominant because you let him in your bed.

My Giant had her own bed. Literally a twin bed in her own room. People used to think it was cute to tell her to go to her room. She actually preferred it, as if I laid down with her, she would leave the room as if I fouled her precious sleeping space.

My dog is 20 months, and we are starting to have issues with the bed. Now we have to go backwards and take bed rights away. Guess I should have listened from the begining. Wondering how long it will take before we have issues with two male GSDs. Some people just have to learn the hard way.

I am shocked!!!! Ed would have a stroke if he read this!!! VVG, you are learning the exact reason why dogs should not sleep on the bed.

But, since I'm here, I might as well fess up too. Yes, I allow my Lab on my bed. He sleeps down by my feet, but in the morning when I stir, he slides up next to me and puts his head on my chest and looks at me, wagging his tail. He will get off the bed when told, and will move over when I nudge him and say "move". He has never challenged me for dominance.

L. Swantson raises a good point. I was not questioning whether the dominance problem would happen with the owner whose bed the dog sleeps in, although from what I've read that could happen. I would think that for people with kids, having the dog sleep in bed with the parents would be a strong signal that clearly indicates to the dog that it is higher in the pack hierarchy than the kids are.

My house is really small and if they slept anywhere else at night it would be a tripping hazard. Tig,

YOu never cease to amuse me.

I have children, and I have not had that problem. My kids are 13 and 14, so they are capable of asserting dominance. Of course, I have a Lab. Things might be different with a different dog.

My bedroom is a "puppy-free zone". Crying and sad eyes be d*****. I prefer serenity in my sleeping area.
My older bitch may sleep in my bedroom, but not on the bed, unless I am not in it. She knows to jump off when I come in the bedroom. She has earned this extraordinary privelege from six years of good behavior, not from a few months of working me with sad faces and expressive moaning and whining!
Don't do it! You'll regret it! (Think-romantic evening planned-wine, flowers, soft music-low lights, then-strange doggy scents and sounds, foreign hairs abounding...No! bad!)

The bed is -F-ing off limits, and so is waking me up. I don't get up happy if they touch me in the morning. They stay away till I get up, which is usually VERY early in the morning anyway. So I normally kick their butts up first.

That said, I have had a very dominate knucklehead dog, he had run of the house. (not in my bed though, not ever. I don't like sleeping in damn dog hair) I chose to deal with his dominance in other ways. If you can do that, you can pick and choose where your dog goes. If you are inconsistant about it, or you really don't work on dominance issues elsewhere in training and time spent together, then you better keep Fido out of your bed, and your bedroom.

I let the dogs slide in a few ways because I spend so much time training. I also just have a dominate personality, so I rarely have problems. I don't make them wait for me to go through doors, in fact I often send them in first. They can't push past me, or touch me or anyone else in the door way or on the stairs, but I don't make a point out of them waiting at every door for me.

Obedience training really establishes rank, so I do that.

ok. so you can add me to the list of guilty.
but out of 7 dogs, only one gets to sleep on the bed.
it started when i was at school and we had mice. i decided i would rather have a dog on the bed than a mouse.
then one day someone gave him a peanut butter dog treat. he is allergic to peanuts. that evening his feet swelled up. he did not need to go to the emergency clininc, but i was worried about him. i figured if he was on the bed, i'd be more likely to know if the reaction got severe.
now, it's just kind of become what we do.
i tried letting one of the other dogs sleep on the bed once. the whole night she did not move. i thought she was sleeping. i woke up and found a huge hole in the sheet.