Hi, I have acquired two beautiful litter mate pups, one female yellow and one male chocolate. I currently have them on a strict schedule 6am feed, 12 pm feed and 6pm feed. They play all day, and I leave the divided 42" crate door open while they play. They do have a nap time period in the middle of the day with the door shut (they have no issues going in). But when it is time to go to bed at night, 8pm they are crated (taken out before bed time and no water before bed). As I wake at 5:45am, they are excited to go out, and they do their business, but the bedding is wet on during the night (not sure if this is my male or female. PLEASE HELP
Hi how old are they if there only like a few months old then its very hard for a puppy to go through the night a young puppy need the loo every hour or two
This is nearly 10 hours of holding on to their toilet, if they are very young this is an incredibly long time for a pup to not go. Agree with blaser1975, they need letting out every hour or so as their bladders are still not very strong. Don't worry though, this will improve very soon. They sound very well behaved and content with their routine.
Hi and welcome Lori, I agree with the others. Depending on how old they are, I would take the pups out at 10:30 or 11:00 pm, again at around 3 am, and then start the day at 06:00.
Hi and welcome. At such a young age they really can't hold their bladder that long. As suggested above you may need to get up at different times for a while until they are a bit older. I also wouldn't restrict water for that long as pups can become dehydrated quickly. Do you let them play most of the day? Do you do any 1-2-1 training with either of them? It would be good to give them some 1-2-1 time so they respond to you and don't think every day all day is playtime, or they will do this and as they get older, 2 large dogs are harder to manage than 2 small pups (and take up more room).
i agree with all above. depending on age is how long they can hold their bladder. my 8 wk old wakes up every 3-3 1/2 hours during the night and i take him out to potty. i just went home for lunch and it had been longer than i planned (4 hours) and he had messed in his crate (first time). They are not on a schedule yet to go that long and their bladders are small right now.
Original POSTER never returned.... I wonder if we didn't say what s/he wanted to hear. Early puppie hood is serious sleep deprivation for the adult humans. Our puppie is now almost 15 weeks. At 8 weeks we gave him all the water he wanted until 8 PM. Then we withdrew it. He peed every 45 minutes then. He didn't go to bed until 11:30 PM, and I had to get up at 3:30 AM to take him out to pee, and then again at 6 AM. By 12 weeks, we would still offer him water until 8 PM. But he had begun to develop a schedule about going to bed at 10:30 and harassing us if we didn't take him up. He could hold his pee from 10:30 PM to 5:30 AM--7 hours. Now at almost 15 weeks, he demands to go to bed at 10:30, and will go to sleep in his upstairs crate even if no one is in the room. We feed him at 6 PM with lots of water in the kibble, and offer it again at 8 PM. He pees and Poos at 10:30 PM and then goes up to bed in his crate. He lasts until about 7:15 AM when he has a long pee and a poo, gets breakfast with a lot of water, and then goes back to sleep for another 90 minutes, after which he goes out for a pee. We are retired so these schedules are not a problem for us, and his sleep schedule has actually improved my sleeping by forcing me to get to bed earlier, and give up my night owl ways. He can hold pee for 3 hours unless we are running around, but we usually take him out every 2 hours. We still withhold water after 8 PM, and it seems not to cause any problem since he's not active, and the room for sleeping is about 60F. Occasionally he will ask for water after 8 PM and then we give him a little bit.
My puppie is going to be 85 lb. At 15 weeks he weighs in at about 23-25 lbs. HE IS A BIG BOY, and soon he will have to walk up the stairs at night because we won't be able to carry him. Our breeder says that a slow walk up the stairs once a day will be OK for his hip development, but no jumping, down the stairs(also a slow down).
I would never withhold water from any if my dogs at any age or any time of day. They have free access to water at all times the only exception being them due for a surgical procedure.
I certainly would never take water up from mine , as pups or adults . This applies even more so if the puppy/adult dog is being fed a dried food , they require fresh water at all times . Even when mine slept in the bedroom , there would be water down for them , I cant imagine not providing this most basic of requirements .
I certainly don't intentionally withhold water - BUT Luna was a water-digger, so I couldn't leave water in her pen with her because it would end up out of the bowl in about five seconds flat, and then she'd pick the bowl up and fling that around. When I used a heavier bowl, she just carried on digging at it, even once it was empty. So she had to be offered water on regular occasions. She was obsessed - every time she came out of her pen she made a bee-line for the big dogs' water bowl and dug that all out over the floor, so I learnt to pick that up first. She was (and still is) a thirsty little thing, though, so I had to give her the chance to drink every 20 minutes or so. Another on the long list of things to keep me occupied with the puppy I do think that puppies should be allowed to drink when thirsty and specifically withholding water in our own interests (which toilet training is) is rather unkind. They learn to regulate their intake in the same way as they learn to do every thing else. My older two never had their water taken up before they went into their crates at night - about midnight - and it had no detrimental effects on their toilet training. They developed at a normal puppy rate.
I have a bowl of water in my bedroom as well as downstairs so Harley can have it when she wants. I have never withheld water except when going under anaesthetic or being sedated. Harley slept well within 2 weeks of being with us. I did and still do get up if she needs to go out during the night, but that rarely happens. As I said above, withholding water can mean pups can get dehydrated quickly and become poorly. There are ways around it as a Fiona says above - by offering water regularly and not just to suit us humans.
We don't withhold water for our pup either. I did have to pick up the bowl after drinks for a while as Caspar would pick up the bowl and play with it, ending up with water everywhere. I always offered it again when he went to his placemat to look for it. Thankfully that game has stopped now so he has free access.
