A dog may be sleeping but its brain is still working away

Dogs are highly sensitive to their environment while sleeping, research suggests. Photo: AFP

Like their archenemies – cats – dogs can spend many hours sleeping. The time they spend asleep enables them to recuperate from exertion, but also to assimilate all the information acquired during the day. But their sleep might not be as impenetrable as you might think, a new study suggests.

Researchers in Hungary have discovered that canines can identify whether the sounds they hear while asleep are emitted by a fellow dog or a human. They came to this conclusion after conducting an experiment with 13 pet dogs. The scientists recorded their brain electrical activity while they were asleep, in order to analyse the variations induced by sensory stimuli during the different sleep phases (slow wave and REM).