Hi all, looking for some advice again! Jura is now just over 12 weeks old, and previously has been sleeping well in her crate at night. For the last couple of weeks she's been going down at about 10pm and up at between 5am, one morning last week even sleeping to 6am......until the last couple of nights. Tuesday night she was up 3 times, midnight, around 3am then 5am but settled back down once she'd been out peed and popped back in crate, minimal fuss, eye contact etc. Then last night we popped her in her crate at 10pm as normal, and she howled and barked and basically screamed the place down! Gave her 10 mins to see if she would settle and then went down to check in case there was a problem, waited for her to be quiet before opening her door, and took her out. She did pee but then she will if I give her her pee command and it was a tiny pee so I really don't think she needed to go at all! Back in the crate with minimal attention, and then the barking and howling and screaming commenced again! This went on for about 2 hours, but we did check her every 30 mins and take her out incase there was a problem, again with minimal fuss but obviously this is giving her attention. She's fine with her crate today, I gave her a stuffed kong mid morning as I had a bit of work to do and she ran straight into her crate tail wagging and settled down nicely. She does seem a bit quieter today, but she's eating fine, and poo and pees all normal. Do you think this is just an attention seeking phase we are going through, and it is a case of riding it out? The only change is that on Tuesday she had her second vaccination but she seems fine otherwise. I think the sleep deprivation is causing me to over analyse here!!
I think they can go through little spells - she might be going into the 'fear' part of her socialisation which can happen between now and 16 weeks - or she might simply just be testing the water and seeing what this new behaviour gets! Personally I would ride it out and not give her too much attention - it might mean a bit of a noisy night, but dogs are bloomin clever and if she susses out that howling gets any kind of attention she'll continue!
Interesting that she was causing a lot of fuss after her second vaccination -it is possible that she was feeling a little off so was complaining because of that. I wouldn't worry too much though and just keep to the normal routine - if she fusses take her out for a pee and pop her back in her crate with as little interaction as possible. At 12 weeks I didn't speak to Juno after she'd gone to bed in her crate if at all possible - I just slipped her lead on, out in the garden, pee and back into crate. At least with the lack of interaction you're not encouraging her to keep fussing, but as with my children I didn't leave Juno to cry at night until she finally stopped through exhaustion.
I think it depends on your set up doesnt it - Murphy is in a crate, but the door is open and he is then in the hall with baby gates to the stairs and lounge and kitchen - so he has a puppy training pad in the outer area with his water/food bowl. So if he needs a wee in the night he uses that and doesnt wake us up - although for the last week he has been dry overnight (although we dont go to bed until 11 at night and our youngest has us up at 6am!) - if she is fully crated I guess you would have to go and make sure there wasnt a reason for the crying?
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated as always! She is fully crated so if she does cry at night then I do go down to her to make sure that there isn't something wrong, but I try and keep the interaction to an absolute minimum, lead on, into garden to pee, then back into crate. Jura, thankfully, had a much better night last night. I don't what happened before, particularly on Wednesday night, but I'm thinking maybe she heard something in the garden that unsettled her. We have a lot of deer around our garden and it is the start of the roe deer rutting season so lots of strange noises for a little puppy to deal with.
