Please help me not hate my dog!!!!

[Anonymous]

Doodle puppy is 6 months old. And we have two big issues I desperately need help with or I don’t know how we’ll survive.

1. Dog barks constantly when we leave him on our main level and go upstairs (we have a gate at the bottom of the stairs, or sometimes we leave him in his play pen though lately he’s learned to escape). We need to go upstairs without him every evening when we put our 3 kids to bed. He cannot follow us around or the kids get worked up and won’t go to sleep themselves. But he barks and barks. The only solution we’ve found is putting him in the backyard during bedtime so his barking is quieter, but I’m obviously being a terrible neighbor by doing that.

2. Dog goes to sleep in his crate in the family room at 11 pm. He wakes around 4 am and barks until we come down at 6. It’s terrible. We’re not sleeping. DH and I are fighting. My kids are exhausted. Everyone says “just have him in your room” but we ALSO have a 3 year old who comes into our room at night and I’m worried about the 3 year old making the dog bark, or being too playful at night, etc. Al see I long term I know I’ll feel less resentful and of the dog if he sleeps downstairs.

What do I do???? I asked the vet and she didn’t seem to care. I feel like my mental health is at stake. This dog cannot keep barking at 4 am (and being a pain during bedtime).

PLEASE help!

[Anonymous]

For the bedtime can you give him a large treat or long with peanut butter in it? Dogs are pack animals and you are forcing him to be separated from his pack. Same at night, keep him in your room, he may need to use the bathroom at 4am, he’s still a puppy.

[Anonymous]

“ Kong with peanut butter” above

[Anonymous]

For the early AM barking, take turns letting puppy out for a bathroom break then put him back in the crate with a treat, one of you fall back asleep on the couch near the crate. This is like the 4 feeding of a baby. You’re just going to have to wait it out.

[Anonymous]

Here’s an exhaustive discussion of barking issues from ASPCA https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/common-dog-behavior-issues/barking

I highly recommend you get a citronella collar for this attention seeking barking your doodle is engaged in. I used one in the past for a couple of dogs I had who barked excessively, the collars work great. A reasonably smart dogs learns very quickly to just not bark when the collar is on - so don’t make the dog wear it all the time, that’s cruel because dogs need to communicate and let off steam sometimes. But for the overnight while sleeping and during that bedtime routine it’s okay, so long as you accept that your dog might not alert you to an intruder.

Citronella collars don’t hurt the dog at all, it’s just a smell they find unpleasant and as I stated, a smart dog will only get sprayed once or twice before making the connection and going silent mode with the collar on. MAKE SURE THE COLLAR IS ALWAYS LOADED WITH SPRAY AND FRESH BATTERIES, or the dog will lose bark inhibition while wearing it.

Good luck. Please have patience for your puppy and don’t hate it for doing what dogs do anymore than you’d hate your children for doing what children do.

[Anonymous]

I am really sympathetic and not opposed to bark collars, but not for a six month old puppy getting left behind downstairs. Your expectations are unreasonable. Not unreasonable for life! If that’s what you need, rehome the dog.

Otherwise for bedtime I would do a short leash attached to your waistband and just let the kids adjust. Or a baby gate across the door in your room, and the dog stays in there. Being able to see and hear you all may be enough.

For the night, I don’t really think it’s reasonable to ask the dog to sleep alone and perhaps more importantly, there’s nothing you can do about the barking from upstairs. I’d put the crate in your room. Do a pee just before you go yo sleep and if there’s any noise before 6, shake a can of pennies or a quick spray from a spray bottle. No positive attention for barking and absolutely don’t get up.

[Anonymous]

Poodles don’t like to be left alone. That leads to nuisance barking and destructive tendencies. You need to train both the dog and your entire family to follow bedtime routines. So make him a part of the routine instead of shutting him out.

And then what’s the dog mixed with? Mine is mixed with OES, which means he’s a herder, which means I’m never alone. He follows me everywhere when we’re in the house.

Agree with the advice above about moving the crate to your room. He wants to be with his people.

[Anonymous]

Put him to bed in a crate downstairs earlier. My 6 month old Lab goes to bed at 7:30 in her crate in the family room downstairs. I cut off water around 6pm and let her out frequently before bed.

[Anonymous]

Does your puppy need to pee at 4 AM? Mine did at that age. We'd let her out and then she'd go right back into her crate and go right back to sleep. The early morning potty breaks phased out as she hit 7 months.

For bedtime, I'd put her in her crate with a peanut butter Kong. Start with short stints and work up to longer times. See if she'll learn to settle.

[Anonymous]

Bark collar. DCUM is passionately against them, but they are NOT cruel - they will save your sanity and your dog's sanity. It's not fun for him either, to bark endlessly! This is anxiety barking, not barking to communicate "beware, stranger at the door" or "I just saw my friend, I'm so excited". This is repetitive anxious barking that is really bad for dogs.

Always test the collar on yourself first, to see how mild the electric shock is. Try it at the lowest setting first. It took my dog TWO barks to understand he wasn't supposed to bark. He received plenty of praise and treats when he stopped barking. I've never used the collar since, and it's been so many years, I don't even know where it is!

Don't kill yourself with sleep deprivation for some unreasonable "shocks are cruel" principle. Dogs don't learn the same way we do, especially for anxiety barking. The collar will save your life.

[Anonymous]

Are you crate training? I would have them in the crate for these times. You have to make the crate a place of comfort for them and then they will just settle down in it. Give a treat every single time they go into crate and lots of happy praise. Put in a comfy blanket.
My dogs have never slept in bedrooms and they are happy dogs. At some point we stopped closing the crate door but he still typically sleeps there overnight because it is his comfy place for when he’s really tired.
It’s also unclear to me why one parent doesn’t stay downstairs for the night routine. You may also need to switch up the timing of his walls. I’d return from a long walk with him about 20 minutes before bed. Like a kid, after a long walk they are sometimes riled up and want to run around inside like crazy and play tug etc. but then will realize they are exhausted and just flop down to sleep. Then give him another decent walk before you go to bed — at 9 or 10. If he’s a large doodle he should be able to sleep thorough night at that age. It’s not clear to me if he’s barking because he wants to play or he’s barking because he’s anxious—they may have different solutions.
PP’s question about what he’s crossed with is also important — if it’s a border collie or something like that, this will all be harder than if it’s a golden or a Bernese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your puppy need to pee at 4 AM? Mine did at that age. We'd let her out and then she'd go right back into her crate and go right back to sleep. The early morning potty breaks phased out as she hit 7 months.

For bedtime, I'd put her in her crate with a peanut butter Kong. Start with short stints and work up to longer times. See if she'll learn to settle.

Developmentally speaking, no puppy that's more than miniature size needs to pee in the middle of the night past 6 months. I've fostered litters of medium-ish puppies that were 8 WEEKS that could go the entire night without peeing. Obviously, don't have your puppy drink a ton of water right before bedtime, just like you wouldn't want to do that for yourself!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your puppy need to pee at 4 AM? Mine did at that age. We'd let her out and then she'd go right back into her crate and go right back to sleep. The early morning potty breaks phased out as she hit 7 months.

For bedtime, I'd put her in her crate with a peanut butter Kong. Start with short stints and work up to longer times. See if she'll learn to settle.

Developmentally speaking, no puppy that's more than miniature size needs to pee in the middle of the night past 6 months. I've fostered litters of medium-ish puppies that were 8 WEEKS that could go the entire night without peeing. Obviously, don't have your puppy drink a ton of water right before bedtime, just like you wouldn't want to do that for yourself!

If we made her wait she'd literally be dripping pee when we let her out and wouldn't settle. If we just let her out to pee she'd come right back in and go to sleep. She's a hound mix and not small. Perhaps she has a small bladder? No idea, but it worked for us. The behavior also abated as she matured just a bit more. Like I said, by 7 months she'd grown out of it. It's worth a try for OP. Better than hours of barking and waking the whole house.

[Anonymous]

We have a golden doodle. At first, he slept fine in kitchen but suddenly one night he realized he wanted out - he barked at 3am or 4am. It was just as you describe, so after a few nights I let him up to our bedroom. Since that moment, he has slept soundly in our bedroom from 8:30pm to 7:30am. It was a game changer. He sleeps on the floor or on the comfy bed we have in the corner. He never wakes us up.

For bedtime, I suggest someone hanging out with him or doing a long walk while the other spouse does bedtime. I agree with other PPs that the doodles want to be with their family. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I feel like this is my future, complete with the three year old who LOVES coming into our room at night! Our standard poodle is only 9 weeks (we just got her yesterday) and obviously we are very early into crate-training, potty training, all the training. She's quite content to be in the same room as us, but she whines and barks a lot in the crate and her pen. If we leave the house she settles in the crate okay, but if she knows we're here she whimpers and barks. We are also going to try to keep her only on the main level and not let her upstairs in bedrooms or in basement where all the kid toys live. I know I need to stay consistent for this long road ahead of us, but it's really daunting.