A little background on the mutt. She's about 9 years old and we rescued her 2 years ago. She was in rough shape when we got her but many vet trips later, she's as good as new. She really is the best dog. Very well behaved, house trained, knows commands, etc.
When she first came to live with us, our bed was off limits. But over time, we would let her sleep with us occasionally. When she doesn't sleep with us she sleeps on this huge fluffy blanket next to our bed. When I got pregnant, it became really uncomfortable to have her in the bed. She moves a lot during the night and even though she only weighs 11 lbs, she somehow manages to take up half the bed and I get squashed in the middle.
So we decided no more dog in the bed. We need our sleep. However, she has started this thing where she is waking up like 4 or 5 times a night to get in bed with us. She usually goes over to my husband's side of the bed and will jump at him to pick her up. I think she goes to him and not me b/c she knows I will tell her No. Whereas sometimes he is so tired, he just sticks her in the bed on his side to make sure she doesn't wake me up. But then he doesn't sleep well.
It's really getting out of hand and I don't know what to do. We need to find a way to stop this before the baby is born. Putting her in her crate at night is not an option. I don't know what happened to her in a previous life but she hates that thing and will literally make her paws bleed if we put her in there. I also don't think locking her out of our room at night will help. She will just scratch at the door.
Any suggestions?
Re: My dog is driving us nuts
ha if you figure it out, let me know! Gypsie (our chihuahua) sleeps right between us every night.
We've made sure not to let Elise sleep in the bed though, no matter how tempting it can be, especially when she's up in the middle of the night. Takes discipline, but she does not get in our bed!
We actually got dog steps for our dog to climb onto the bed himself so he doesn't wake us at night. He is pretty good about sleeping by our feet and not waking us up though.
LOL! I'm at my wits end so I just might!
I know it's my own fault for letting her in the bed in the first place. And if she would sleep at the foot of our bed quietly, it wouldn't be an issue. But this up and down 4 or 5 times a night is just exhausting.
This is exactly what I am afraid of. She's not a dumb dog and it literally takes her a day to learn something new. Mr. Shoe and I just decided that tonight we will start her out in our bedroom like normal but the first time she wakes us up to get in our bed, we're going to move her and her blanket out into the hallway and shut the door. Hopefully that way she will learn that getting kicked out is a consequence of waking us up.
Thanks, Jamie!