Dogs Deserve Quality Sleep Too: These Tracking Devices Offer Sleep Monitoring Features
We all wish our pets could tell us about their feelings. Sure, it would be super fun to have conversations with our furry friends, but we’d also have a better window to their physical and mental health. As the pet industry continues to make strides in technology and products designed to make life better for pets and their families, devices that help track and offer insights to our pets, their habits and behaviors are at our disposal.
Take, for example, the brand-new sleep monitoring feature available on the Minitailz Smart Dog Tracker from Invoxia. This latest advancement gives dog owners a real insight into their dog’s sleep habits and health with the ability to track and evaluate nap and sleep times, patterns and quality. Minitailz is an AI wearable for pets that gives owners the ability to track their dog’s daily movements in real time while also offering various tracking, alerts and geofencing features. It tracks a pet's locations and daily activities such as walking, running, scratching, eating and drinking, barking and rest periods as well as respiratory and heart vitals.
Minitailz now offers pet parents insight into their dog’s quality of sleep with a daily sleep score, detection of potential health issues related to abnormal sleep patterns and the ability to track and compare pets' sleep data over time.
The Minitailz sleep feature is now available on the Invoxia app. You can purchase Minitailz at petcare.invoxia.com, priced at $99 with subscription fees starting from $8.30 per month.
More devices that offer dog sleep tracking
Minitailz is not the only option when it comes to tracking your dogs’ sleep habits.
1. Fi Collar
Amazon
All variations after Series 1 of the Fi Collar offer sleep tracking amongst its features. With the Rest view, you can track your dog's sleep patterns, including what time your dog went to sleep, when they woke up, how long they slept and if there were any interruptions to their sleep. You can review your dog's sleep pattern across different time periods including hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. After you tap into the time period you want to view, you can review the data for the past hours, days, weeks or months. An average of your dog's sleep, naps and total (sleep plus naps) is shown for each of the time periods. An interruption will be noted when your dog moves for more than three minutes during sleep hours. You can also access a more in-depth look into the interruptions.
2. Tractive GPS LTE
The Tractive GPS offers a Wellness tab where pet parents can view the duration of a dog’s (or cat’s) most recent sleep. You can also access additional insights into their sleep patterns broken down into night sleep, day sleep and calm (not asleep but not active), which compare daily values to the average of the past seven days. This includes how well your pet slept in a night, how often their sleep was disrupted and sleep phases, detailing when your pet was asleep throughout the day.
3. Sure Petcare Animo Dog Fitness Tracker
With the Amino Dog Fitness Tracker, pet parents receive a notification if their dog’s sleep quality becomes lower than previous nights. Sleep scores are recorded for each night based on the length, continuity and the amount of movement during sleep. You can compare sleep quality data with your dog’s average and personalize your dog’s sleeping hours within the app.
Why is sleep quality important for dogs?
Like humans sleeping, a consistent and healthy sleep schedule is imperative for a dog’s overall health and wellness. Sleep is especially important for growth and allows downtime to recharge the body systems, explain the experts at VCA Animal Hospitals. While sleeping, the brain also processes information and experiences that occurred during waking hours.
Our canine companions need more sleep than us. On average, dogs sleep between 8 and 13.5 hours per day, with puppies tending to need more sleep as they develop.
While it’s beneficial for every pet owner to understand how much sleep is normal for your pet through these tracking devices, the sheer number of hours they sleep can vary based on age, breed and activity levels, and time spent sleeping in general doesn’t necessarily send signals about their health. For additional ways to check in on whether your dog is getting enough quality sleep, try tuning in to, according to VCA:
Your pet’s typical sleep times: Not all pets sleep on a schedule, but for those that do, a change in routine may signal a problem.
Your pets’ reactions to their usual stimuli: If your pet typically does so, they should become alert due to a visitor at the door, the treat bag opening or anything else that usually rouses them.
If your pet is missing their usual activities because of sleep: It’s one thing to go to bed a little early, but your pet choosing to sleep over something like dinnertime or play might mean they don't feel well.
Whether your pet seems alert and rested when awake: With all the sleep your dog is getting, they should be energetic and bright when awake and not groggy or listless.
If they have other symptoms: Changes in sleep patterns that appear at the same time as other problems, such as vomiting, coughing or even hair loss, should always be checked out by your vet.
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