We have a 8 month old lab that we have crate trained since the moment we got him (the only exception is when my parents had to borrow their crate a few times over a weekend and he slept in our room). even then, he would sleep fine at about 4-5 months old. Lately, he is wining again at 2am, 330am, 445am, etc. It was bearable to stay sleeping because it was a slight whine, but now that he is older it is so loud it is making the neighbors dogs bark... Where did we go wrong?! is it bad to feel more exhausted now than I did the first month of having him! He gets so worked up at night and barks when i do get up for the day at 4:45, he is like breathing very loudly almost to a pant. I've followed training schedules almost to a T and feel like I dropped the ball somewhere. Any feedback is appreciated!
Hi there. That's a difficult situation. Does he have urinary urgency? Does he per as soon as you take him out? I'm thinking to rule out a simple urge to pee. One thing that could explain the phenomenon being new is if he had a urinary infection....
Does he need to be crated at 8 months? All of our dogs have had the run of the house before then. They sometimes slept in their crate, but the door was not closed.
He sounds lonely. I've never used a crate on our dogs and they've always slept in our room. Usually on a mat on either side of the bed. Our dogs progressively get more and more access to rooms in the house as they get older. By 8 or 9 months they have total run of the house except if we're all out then we shut a couple doors to rooms that have tools or IT gear in them because he's still young enough to put a lot of stuff in his mouth. Try moving his crate to your room. I'd also leave the door open. Then after a bit ditch the crate and just put his mat from the crate there.
