We had a New Year’s resolution here at the Nova Scotia SPCA.
To start napping more.
After all, napping does have some positive qualities, such as boosting your mood, decreasing stress levels, and improving your memory and reaction time. And what a coincidence, nap time for pets has similar benefits. Especially for dogs.
Now, if you have ever visited an animal shelter, the environment is a little different than that in a home. The lights are on for longer periods of time, people are in and out of the rooms – cleaning, feeding, giving medication, playtime, and possible adopters coming in to meet them. That means dogs can be up and alert for 12 to 16 hours a day. Not the most favourable place to take a nap.
So, when we looked at our enrichment toolbox for our doggos, we realized we could be adding something very important.
The idea started when Nova Scotia SPCA’s Sandra Flemming, Chief of Capital Planning & Shelter Operations Advisor, attended an animal welfare conference. Other shelters were implementing nap time and their biggest takeaway from it? Nap time improves a dog’s well-being, reduces stress, and even shortens the length of stay in a shelter.
“Research has shown that shelter dogs who get rest during the day become better suited to their environment. The day rest (nap time) helps the dogs display signs of calmer behaviour, making meeting potential adopters a more positive experience for all,” says Sandra.
So, we huddled down at work, started brainstorming and finally landed on Operation Hit Snooze.
It started as a pilot project at our Dartmouth Shelter. In the dog rooms, every single day of the week from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., the lights are dimmed, human interaction is limited, and special curated music plays – spoiler alert, dogs love reggae and classical tunes.
During their nap time, pups settle into their kennels with a cozy blanket and calming enrichment toys like Kongs. With the soft, long beats of music in the background, the dogs get the uninterrupted rest they need. 
So far, staff have monitored the dogs to see if nap time does make a difference and guess what? The research was quite right. Staff and volunteers noticed that within minutes the shelter is a lot quieter as the dogs settle down, that they wake up happier and calmer which leads to better first impressions since they get to show off more of their true personality.
After all, even in a loving home, dogs should sleep on average 12-14 hours a day, give or take depending on factors such as age, breed, and overall health.
“Sleep benefits dogs in many ways including physical health by allowing muscles time to recover from activity, mental rest, helping to consolidate memories and refresh cognitive functions,” says Dr. Mike Ackerley, DVM at Tartan Tails Veterinary Hospital. “Well-rested dogs are more alert and responsive, their immune system gets a boost, and like humans, helps their mood regulation.”
Now that some time has passed since Operation Hit Snooze started at the Dartmouth Shelter, we’re looking at the benefits the pilot project had so far and seeing if we need to make changes to it before rolling it out province wide to all of the Nova Scotia SPCA shelters. We’re looking at things such as which music genre the dogs respond better to, is an hour enough for nap time or do we need to extend it, how do we get cats, rabbits and other companion animals in the shelters down for a nap? Stay tuned for that!
So, the conclusion seems pretty straightforward. Napping is in this year. For pets and we think for humans too.
If you wish to be a part of this project, there are a couple of ways to help.
Donate to Operation Hit Snooze to help us fund the program and be able to roll it out to all shelters. Donations can be made here: www.novascotiaspca.ca/hitsnooze/. You can suggest a song when you make a donation and you will receive a playlist too so you can nap to the same music our dogs are napping to.
And of course, adopt one of the sleepy furry friends. You can check out the adoption webpage and visit the nearest shelter.
P.S.: We chatted even more about Operation Hit Snooze in a Nova Scotia SPCA PAW’dcast episode, which you can Iisten to here.