Hello, This is my first post on this message board. I have periodically cone in here when needing advice or survival techniques (jk). I have a 17 week old English Labrador. I have had many ups and downs with Jackson, but we have gotten through it and it's getting better. Unfortunately I can't find an answer to this. My question is, Jackson is crated at night in our room. He gets plenty of exercise at night and his food is cut off at 530 and water at 630. He goes to sleep very easy at 9. He wakes up at 3-330 to go #1 and #2. How do I push this longer? 2nd part of this question, after doing his business he goes back in the crate but is back jumping at the door 45 min later and begins to bark. He doesn't need to use washroom. How do I get him to hold his business and return to sleep until I'm ready to wake up? Ty in advance.
Hi and welcome from me and my boy Bailey, a fox red 19 month old. At 17 weeks it is probably still a little early for Jackson (love the name) to hold his bladder all night. That will mainly come with age/maturity. I was a very lucky puppy mum in that my boy slept through the night from day one, it was me waking every hour to check on him for the first two weeks we had him! I can only tell you what I did with Bailey when he was small, he had four small meals a day with the last being around 8pm at night, he had free access to water at all times (even had a small bowl in the night time crate with him). It could be the early waking is that he is hungry? If not then does he settle if you let him out of his crate (not sure if you want him on your bed or not - but he could just be wanting to be with you). To push the first waking to slightly later - do you set your alarm clock or do you wait until he wakes you up? I know others have set alarm clocks so that they wake the pup up, take them outside making it as boring as possible i.e. no speaking, no play, no interaction, just up, out and back to bed. Then maybe set your alarm clock again just before he creates again and repeat - if he doesn't wee or poo then back to bed, again with no interaction. I am sure there will be someone more experienced than me along soon to give more advice as I have not had to do this myself.
Hi from Gus and I! Our little guy is only 12 weeks but we have shifted and switched and tried out numerous different nighttime routines to find what worked for him. We found that feeding him dinner at 6 was to early. He'd go out to potty around 7 and was asleep by 8. He would almost always wake up hungry around 2 or 3 am or needing to use the potty. We decided to push him last meal until 8. He now potties around 9 and goes down sometime between 9-10. He sleeps through the night until between 6-7. He sleeps in our room right next to our bed so I can hear him if he even stirs and since pushing his meal back he's not made a peep until at least 6. I know I've read some labs just take longer to adjust to sleeping through the night so this may not work for you but maybe worth a shot adjusting his time a little?? I saw someone post their lab didn't sleep through the night until he was nearly 9 months old! Yikes! Lol! On the weekends when we want to sleep in a pinch longer we let him out to potty around 6:30 and then either give him a stuffed kong next to our bed or just out him in bed with us and he usually goes back to sleep for a bit. Probably not a habit you'd want to start But it's worked well for us. Same as above said we aren't experienced at all!! Just wanted to let you know we too faced this and what has worked for us!
Hehe, it's entirely possible that was me. My little madam took an age to mature enough physically to hold her bladder overnight. Even now, at 11 months, she occasionally needs to go out in the early hours. It's OK, who needs sleep anyway?
My pup penny now 22 wks has been a dream at night. I wonder if some pups are better than others at toilet training. I felt i didnt need to really do much. Penny never had a crate and right from the start she was in the kitchen on her cosy bed. Lucky for me after a couple nights in she really settled. I used puppy pads until she was about 10 wks and she was brilliant then she decided that these were better ripped to shreds so that was that. She was left without and i got up early for 2 wks to a couple of pee pee never poop. Then from about 12wks i have never had any bother she goes the full night till about 8am and never had an accident ( once she wasnt so well and had diarrhoea). I honestly feel blessed with her in that department now she would never do it in the house. ..and i can leave her for a few hrs if i have to
Absolutely. Willow was about average, Shadow came pretty much toilet trained and Luna was a frickin' nightmare!
