Why Do Border Collies Sleep On Their Backs

You’ve probably noticed your border collie sleeping in some pretty weird positions. Your collie’s sleeping style isn’t just a personal preference. How your collie sleeps can not only reveal a lot about their personality but also their health. Learn more about what your collie sleeping on their back means, and if, or when, you should be concerned.

It’s Just A Wolf Thing

Despite the centuries of separation and domestication, your border collie still holds onto some of the primitive behaviors of their wolf ancestors. For example, your collie howls when hearing a siren wail through the night. Rolling over on their backs is another primitive behavior. In wolf culture, rolling onto the back is a show of respect and submission to the alpha of the pack, much in the same way a bowed head shows respect among certain people. Rolling over is also used by wolves to help them out of potential danger by peacefully persuading an aggressor to back off.

Laying On Their Back To Cool-Down

Collies only have sweat glands in the pads of their paws. As dogs can’t regulate their body temperature like humans can by sweating. In the hot and humid months of the year when dogs can overheat easily, therefore your collie has to get creative with how they cool down. As dogs have a thinner hair coat on their belly, sleeping on their back, exposing their sparsely furred abdomen, in combination with vasodilation (dilation of the blood vessels) allows your collies blood to flow towards their skin where it’s cooler and away from their inner body where it is warmer.

By sleeping on their back, your collie is also allowing for maximum paw pad exposure. Again, dogs only sweat through their paw pads, so exposing their paws in the air can actually allow for thermoregulation via sweating.

Any dog can overheat in hot or stuffy weather, but some age groups are more at risk than others. For example, puppies and older dogs can’t thermoregulate as well compared to a healthy adult collie, so they are more at risk of overheating. Border collies that have an existing illness, especially if it’s related to their heart and/or lungs, can be at a higher risk of overheating as well. Border collies that are obese and overweight can also be more prone to overheating because of their extra weight. As fat tissue isn’t typically vascular, a collie can’t cool off as effectively with vasodilation when they have all that extra fluff in the way. If you notice your collie sleeping on their back more in the hotter months or if your dog happens to be a dog that is predisposed to overheating, then providing them with a gel-cooled bed could help them cool off better. As with any bed, you need to be cautious, because if your border collie normally enjoys shredding and eating their bed then the gel inside these specially made beds could cause gastrointestinal upset and dangerous if ingested.

Showing Comfort

Back sleeping allows your border collie to completely relax their muscles and prevent them from putting any pressure or extra tension on their muscles and joints. This lets them sleep deeply without aggravating any joints that could be arthritic. If your collie is a bit long in the tooth or if they have any early onset arthritis from surgery or from an orthopaedic injury, then you should invest in an orthopaedic memory foam bed, which could be beneficial. These special beds allow your border collie to sleep without putting too much pressure on their achy joints allowing them to sleep on their back all the time.

When your collie sleeps on their back, this is also telling you that they feel completely and totally safe and secure in their surroundings. As the abdominal organs are not protected as well as the heart and lungs, laying on the back can be an incredibly vulnerable position for them.