Have you ever wondered if your dog is getting enough and good quality sleep? According to SantéVet, a dog sleeps on average between 10 and 15 hours a day. It may seem quite long, but it is necessary for them to recover from their daily activities. But how can you tell if your dog had a good night’s sleep? Was he restless or did he get up multiple times? This is now possible with the latest feature of Minitailz.
We use the innovative sensors of our dog tracker and activity and heart rate detection algorithms for this. In your Petcare app, you now have access to an overview of your pup’s night through a sleep score. The feature is already available on Minitailz, just go to the Activity > Sleep section!
How Your Dog’s Sleep Score Works #
The sleep score takes into account three main components. It encompasses the animal’s sleep duration, the dog’s restlessness during sleep, and the number and duration of any interruptions.
- First, the algorithm detects the start and end of the night, which can be viewed directly in the application. Based on this, it assigns a score to the duration of the night. The longer the night, the better the score.
- Next, between these start and end times, the system detects the dog’s restlessness during sleep. Your dog’s sleep is also filled with dreams, which can sometimes cause some movement during sleep. If your dog has restless sleep and moves around, it negatively impacts the sleep score.
- Finally, the artificial intelligence detects the episodes of the night when the dog is awake and their duration. These two elements are considered to calculate an interruption score. The more interruptions there are, the lower the score. Similarly, the longer the duration of each interruption, the lower the score.
These three scores are aggregated to determine an overall sleep score for your dog. It is presented as a percentage, which you can find in the sleep section.
And in the Minitailz community? Your dogs’ sleep statistics #
To offer you this new feature, our engineers have worked on the algorithms of Minitailz using data from our amazing users. During this period, they were able to analyze the sleep of the dogs in our community and answer 5 questions we often wonder about.
How long do the community’s dogs sleep? #
On average, dogs sleep 10 to 15 hours per day because they rest multiple times throughout the day. Nevertheless, their nights are quite long:
- A dog sleeps a little over 9 hours.
- 90% of dogs sleep between 6.5 and 11.5 hours.
Does age impact sleep duration? #
Yes, it seems that younger and older dogs sleep a little less.
For puppies, the explanation tends towards the fact that they do not want to stay inactive in bed. For older dogs, it’s quite simple: like elderly people, they tend to sleep longer during the day.
Is there a link between age and the number of night awakenings? #
While the number of awakenings seems to slightly increase with the dog’s age, the correlation remains quite weak. Therefore, old age does not have a significant impact on their sleep in general, although this can vary from dog to dog!
Do small dogs sleep longer than big dogs? #
According to data collected by Minitailz on different dog breeds, there appears to be no correlation between sleep duration and the dog’s weight. In the end, on average, small Chihuahuas and large Saint Bernards sleep just as long!
How many times do dogs wake up per night? #
On average, the dogs in our community wake up 2 to 3 times per night. But this number seems to have great variability and more than 10% of the community’s dogs wake up at least 5 times per night!
How to get the best possible data on your dog’s sleep? #
To obtain your dog’s sleep score, it is essential that they wear the Minitailz not only during the day but also at night. This allows it to record all the necessary data to give you the most realistic score possible. This score is developed based on the analysis of sleep data from our community of users, providing us with an in-depth understanding of dogs’ nighttime habits.
Additionally, the heart and respiratory measurements captured during the night are more representative and present less variability, making them more reliable for predicting pathologies. Like a real smartwatch, Minitailz allows you to monitor their well-being and detect potential health issues proactively!
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