Getting puppy to sleep through the night - possible??

jasarah

Bentley is five months old; we kenneled him in our bedroom up until about a month ago - now he sleeps on his dog bed right next to ours.  We let him out at 10pm, and then he typically wakes us up around 4am to go outside.  He has always gone back to sleep, but the past two weeks, he just sits at the bedroom door and barks.  My husband feeds him, and then he's all wound up, and really won't lay back down.

Any suggestions?  I've tried ignoring it, thinking he'll eventually lay down, but after fifteen minutes of his LOUD bark, we're both beyond frustrated.

DH wants to move the kennel to the basement (where it'll eventually be anyway), but I think he's still too young - think he'd be terrified.  Should we start kenneling him at night, in hopes that he'll sleep in his kennel?

Any help would be appreciated.  TIA! 

Sanderso39

I have a 2 and a 5 year old and some nights this happens.  When it does I just ignore them.  My husband gets up at 4:15 for work and leaves around 4:45 so normally Liberty will come back in the room and sleep, but sometimes, for some reason, she just wants to stay up and bark and run around and be loud.  All I can do ignore her until it stops or until I decide to get up early for work.  When she was a baby we would kennel her at night in another room at the other side of the house so we wouldn't hear her crying all night.  We also never fed them until it was time for us to be awake for the day.  Otherwise they think it's time to get up.  Sometimes they do things we cant understand and it's frustrating!  Especially with a puppy!  I JUST got my 5 year old jack russell to sleep in his bed on the floor instead of our bed a couple months ago.  He fought us on it for so long then one night he just slept on the floor.  We did nothing different, he just did it.  Sorry I can't be of more help but know you aren't alone and it's normal.

KikiMira

My Boston - Pax is 14 months now. Oh the puppy phase I dont miss. My vet said puppies can typically hold there bladders for an hour to the months old - so 5 months is 5 hours, so dont expect all night until 8 months. 

Anyways, we kept Pax in a closed in room - ie Bathroom.  with his kennel open, a pee pad and some food and water. He could get up and pee when need and he would go back to bed, no issues, he typically would sleep in until 8 or so. 

At 6-7 months we started all night kenneling, he would cry to go pee at about 6 am, let him out to pee and I would put him back in his kennel with a little bit of food. He would go to bed fairly easily.Ignoring it is the best way to go.

Eventually he will get it, that he doesn't get to get up and play yet. I would highly suggest kenneling him again. They get the kennel is their bed. You can still keep it in your room. I wouldn't put him in the basement (why the basement?) yet, if he needs to get up and pee, you guys wont hear him and cleaning up a urine filled kennel is way more frustrating then let him outside, in my opinion.

Good luck!

nital

Let him out to potty, and then ignore him when he's back in.  You can put him in his crate or another room, but do not pay attention to him.  Unfortunately he's already learned that barking gets him food and attention, so he will get worse before he gets better, but he will learn that mornings don't start until you get up.  Get earplugs if you have to.

rentaduckie

At petsmart, they recommended these for our too hyper dog who needed to be calmed down due to his recent neutering. 

http://www.pet-dog-cat-supply-store.com/shop/index.php?page=shop-flypage-28053 

Lindy2Be

When we got Gemini, she would get up 2-3x a night to potty (after being crate trained and learning not to potty in there). We have the dream of her sleeping on our bed with us, but it is not possible at this point (she will be 1 this month). She sleeps in her crate, and after reaching 6 months or so, she began to sleep mostly through the night. She usually wakes up to potty between 5 and 6 am, but she will go back to sleep until we get up (relatively early for work anyway). Like someone above mentioned, your puppy will hopefully learn that the day starts when you and your hubby wake up. Gemmi is perfectly content with chewing on her bone or just resting until we get up. Then she is even more excited to start the day with us! It takes time, but it will happen. Good luck! :-)

tmp-748484812502092

Ack, feeding him when barking definitely was not the right idea. You rewarded him  for barking. Now you need to do the opposite. You need to reward him for being quiet at night/in the morning. When you go to bed at night, have some kind of treat next to the bed. WHenever he's being quiet, treat him. So before you go to sleep and he's lying quietly on his bed? Treat. Wake up in the middle of the night and he's lying quietly? Treat. Come back in from midnight potty break and goes and lies down quietly? Treat.

If he starts barking, you can try some different things. Some dogs think when you yell "No Bark" at them, that you are barking at them, and bark more. Some dogs don't like being "Barked" at and will shut up. Some dogs you have to ignore until they stop on their own, realizing they don't get a reward, and some you can "Correct". Figure out which works for your dog, and when he's being quiet again, treat.

It might take a few mornings for him to get it, but he will.

I've also taught my dogs the command "Go lay down", which means go to your bed and lie down and be quiet. When I was training this command, they got treats when they correctly did this.

Moving the crate/him to another room at night is more likely to upset him and cause him to bark more. Like all night. And I'm not kidding, my first rescue I tried to crate in the living room at night and he barked. All. Night. Long. Next night, his crate was in our bedroom. Dogs prefer to sleep where you sleep, so if I were you, I'd keep up the habit of allowing him to sleep in your room.