Our puppy had settled in really well and had just started sleeping through the night in his crate with no problem. When he was 3 months old he had a really awful reaction to some medication, meaning that he went completely off the rails. Bouncing off the walls like on amphetamines and running around and crying for 8 hours straight through the night. When he barked or howled (for our neighbours' sanity) we would go down and try to calm him. In desperation after trying everything else we ended up with blankets and pillows on the kitchen floor asleep at 4.30am. It was definitely the medication and after he was taken off it (after 3 completely sleepless nights) his behaviour went back to normal. He's 4 months old now and has no problem at all now when in the crate in the day time if we go out. He knows that we are not there and so barking will not get any attention or a reward. Nighttime is a different story. He knows we are upstairs and, although he will generally go to sleep very happily, if he stirs after an hour or so he will begin barking for attention. He doesn't need the toilet or anything - we think he just wants company. We can't leave him to bark as we live in a terraced house and it would drive our neighbours potty. We've tried putting the crate in our bedroom but that doesn't seem to help. He wants to be physically close to us, as in cuddled on the bed. That's not an option for us - I'm pregnant and so as my bump grows there is going to be very little room for the two of us, a big bump, and a giant labrador! Plus I don't want to then kick him out of bed when the baby arrives as it wouldn't be fair. We want to go back to the perfect situation where he went happily into his crate at bedtime and we didn't hear a peep until the morning. Leaving him to cry it out just isn't an option, so I wondered if anyone else had any genius suggestions! Please?!?
Hi, I haven't experienced this myself but a friends dog had a bad accident and went through a couple of severe surgeries and the vets recommended checking on the dog every couple of hours overnight just to make sure that he was okay as they didn't want to leave him in the surgery for weeks. The nighttime checks slowly reduced in number over a few weeks but he got used to having company overnight and when the nighttime checks stopped he would whinge until they went out to check he hadn't hurt himself again. Someone advised her to put a blanket over his crate when it was time for bed to kind of use as a signal that it is nighttime. It took a bit of persevering but eventually he started to associate the blanket being pulled down as his cue to settle for the night. I hope your pup starts to settle soon
