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Mary Jane Thompson is a victim of her pets' elaborate nighttime rituals.

For three years, the retired teacher has been roused nightly by the "hullabaloo" of Mark and Oliver, her male cats, and Sasha, her young German-shepherd border-collie mix, who all, on occasion, share her bed.

"Mark walks on the outside of the bed and breathes on you," says Ms. Thompson, who lives in Thessalon, Ont., west of Sudbury.

Ms. Thompson "settles" Mark with affection, only to have Oliver descend on the nightstand, where he clumsily knocks things over. If a thunderstorm clamours or hunters shoot ducks on the nearby pond, Sasha scampers under her bed.

Now, when Ms. Thompson is away from home, she still wakes up early, trained by her animals.

"They're relentless," she says. "It's like kids: You're sort of up with them."

It's been well documented that sharing the family bed with children can wreak havoc on sleep, but research suggests that snoozing with the pet may be just as disruptive.

A survey of 300 sleep-disorder patients at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center revealed that nearly 60 per cent let pets sleep in the bedroom, while a quarter allowed pets in their bed at night. Of those, 53 per cent had their sleep disrupted every night. Meanwhile, 21 per cent of dog owners complained about their minions' snoring.

Ottawa graduate student Amanda Pyykonen says she only gets "very intensely restful sleep" when she is away from her cat, a three-year-old female named Henry. As a kitten, Henry used to pass out on the side of Ms. Pyykonen's face - after she suckled Ms. Pyykonen's ear.

This behaviour was eventually deterred by her boyfriend, Darren Coughtrey, who, roused too many times by the "loud noise," blocked access to the prized ear.

Today, Ms. Pyykonen sleeps on her side with the frisky eight-pounder "nuzzling" at her knees. The setup leaves her legs numb in the morning but she will have it no other way: "Henry's between my knees, [Darren's] rolling around like a tornado and I'm the one who's not moving. It's very stereotypical, maternal self-sacrifice."

Ms. Pyykonen then recalls her mother Judy's displacement onto the couch at the family home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., after Turk, a sizable yellow Lab who was ill with cancer, took to "splaying out" on the bed with Judy's husband.

As pack animals, dogs are genetically predisposed to sleep with their owners and treat bedrooms as their natural dens, says Richelle Sanson, director of Puppy People, a "positive reinforcement training" company in Toronto.

Ms. Sanson has a few rules that help her sleep through the night - with as many as six dogs in her bed. She must allow them up first, and no jostling is allowed. When a noise startles the pack, only one dog is allowed to "vocalize" (or bark) at a time - the dog trainer has taught her pets something called "sequencing."

Generally, Ms. Sanson sleeps well: "Every now and then I'll roll over and there will be a dog there," she says. Her partner Rachel, however, is not as into it and occasionally insists on a dog-free night.

Ms. Sanson says crate training can help get puppies into the habit of sleeping alone. She says a dog that is noisy at night is probably bored and did not get enough stimulation during the day.

Cats, nocturnal mammals oblivious to human circadian rhythms, should be free to roam through the house, play, eat, drink and use the litter box all night, say experts on WebVet.com, an online resource for pet owners.

Sleep deprivation aside, Ms. Sanson says, pets in bed are "comforting."

"A lot of people that are lonely will get dogs out of that necessity."