..joking lol but he's not getting used to his crate and I'm exhausted I put him in his crate around 10.30 pm and he doesn't settle and whines and groans then I let him out wait for him to settle and fall asleep then I move him back to his crate he usually sleeps then for 3hour then wants out etc but if he doesn't see me he will whine and cry until he sees me or is let out I'm being too soft on him but at 2 am I'm too exhausted to wait till he's fell asleep and move etc so he ends up sleeping with me!! Can anyone give me tips etc lol ( he's 9 weeks old today)
Hi there, get a puppy pen, bed at one end, newspapers at the other. Take the puppy out for a last wee and poo, put him in his pen, say goodnight, go to bed and get some sleep! Get up as early as you can but after you've had enough sleep to be normal! All this crate and taking puppies out at night is all very well, but there are limits, I think. Puppy will be much better off, and no doubt get much better training and care, if the human in charge has had some sleep!
Yes - I swear by puppy pens too. I have a new pup every summer and couldn't face losing sleep every year! Here is Twiglet in June
When I have a new puppy I get a cardboard box and put it beside my bed and dangle my hand in it, so the pup knows I am close, we both sleep! If the pup wants to have a wee, I am made aware and get up and let him out and back to bed. He slept through the night in no time. During the day, I would pop him in his crate when he was sleepy (door open) and gradually that was the place he chose to go to sleep and eventually closed the door. So once he was settled with me and not missing his litter mates so much, it was easy to put him in the crate at night, especially as the other dogs were in the same room.
I persevered for a few weeks with the crate, but ended up giving up and she has slept with us ever since. Personally we love her sleeping with us, I know not everyone feels the same though. The first night she slept upstairs she slept from 12pm-9am. Nowadays she will sleep from 10/11pm til at least 10am on a weekend. If you want him crate trained it is worth following the advice of JulieT and Boogie.
My dog sleeps with me. But, he is also fine sleeping alone, he will settle in a hotel room in a fabric travel crate while I attend lectures, or a holiday cottage where he can't be left free. He is also cool being in a crate for a day at the vet's, or 6 weeks after cruciate surgery. So, I completely understand if you give in and let a dog sleep with you (my dog does mostly every night). I'd still try to crate train a dog though. I just wouldn't sweat it for the first few difficult weeks. Charlie was crate trained at 10 months... bed by julieandcharlie julieandcharlie, on Flickr
I think it's worth crate training as you never know when they'll need to be crated as Julie described. My 20 month old spaniel is currently rebelling against his crate. I'm going to wait til life here settles down(we're having the kitchen knocked about) and then I'll start again from scratch.
It only took about 2 or 3 weeks to get Cooper to the point that she would sleep until about 6:00am. She sometimes complained about going back into her crate at that point. Unfortunately my wife decided to let her come up on the bed at that point. Now she is a Bed Dog. Initially we had a crate in the bedroom and a pen in the kitchen, as well as a baby gate across the kitchen door. We would keep her in the pen if we could not watch her fairly closely, and give her the run of the kitchen if we were cooking, eating etc. We still have the baby gate, so we can confine them to the kitchen if we have a reason, but normally both dogs have the run of the house all day and all night. We have a dog door going to the fenced back yard. Cooper has mostly had the run of the house or our cabin since she was about 4 months old. We have her crate in the kitchen and she sometimes sleeps in it, but we don't lock her in it any more.
