From the first night we brought our puppy home, he has never had a hard time falling asleep in his crate at night. Staying asleep (or at least staying quiet) is another story. When he was younger, we attributed it to his inability to hold his bladder, but now that he is approaching 6 months old, we feel like we have created a monster. My husband usually puts him in the crate around 11PM and comes upstairs. At the very latest, he will start the barking game around 3AM. Last night, he barked every hour on the hour. My husband kept taking him outside to relieve himself and putting him straight back in the crate but around 3AM, smelled poop and realized he messed the crate. We aren’t 100% accident free yet, but he’s had diarrhea for the past 24-hours which may have caused the accident. I’m pregnant so my poor husband has been tending to him in the middle of the night, but I feel like he isn’t getting any sleep and is getting more and more frustrated. We have considered the “cry it out” method as we wonder if he has learned crying and barking gets our attention (eventually we stay on the couch downstairs and let him out just to get some sleep); however, we live in a neighborhood where the houses are very close together and don’t want to disturb our neighbors and we also don’t want to be ignoring his cues to go outside and end up having a huge mess to clean up too! Has anyone successfully overcome this??
Yes, this sounds like learned behaviour. But could it be a bit of anxiety too? The poop makes me think that. Have you thought about having him sleep in your bedroom? Here is an excellent article - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-cope-with-a-crying-labrador-puppy/ And welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Keir from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's four years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Keir is my fifth Guide Dog puppy, a yellow Golden Retriever/Flatcoat cross and he's five months old.
Thanks for your reply!! He is in the crate all day while we are at work and seems to be fine with that. (No barking/crying when we put him in or come home, clean dry crate after we return). But when we put him in his crate and are home, it is a different story. It does seem the older he has gotten, the worse he has gotten. We used a “puppy condo” with a small fenced area and pee pads as recommended by our breeder when we first brought him home and he’d stay in there for 8+ hours at night with no problem. When he started tearing the pee pads and newspapers to shreds, we went to just a crate. Sometime after transitioning him just to the crate, this behavior started and it seems to have just gotten worse in the last 2 months. anks for
Sounds like much too long to leave a pup, especially in a crate where his movement is restricted. It’s no wonder, to be fair, that he’s lonely at night. Have you thought about doggy day care? Here is another good article - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/combining-a-labrador-puppy-with-full-time-work/
Since he is in the crate all day I would suggest you crate him as little as possible while you are home and get used to the idea that he needs attention and lots of it. Think of this, he has probably done nothing all day but sleep. What you have essentially turned him into is a 3rd shift labrador. The reason I say this is that you say he is waking you up about every hour. We are retired and are obviously up all day. Murphy gets up in the morning. Plays, etc. Sleeps awhile and then "Hey guys, what we doing, huh, huh?" This repeats about every two hours until it is bed time. So Murphy is a 1st shift dog.
