Teen (tween) dog sleep issue

[Anonymous]

Maybe he’s hungry?? 3pm for dinner seems early. When our dog still ate 3 times a day, she ate at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he’s hungry?? 3pm for dinner seems early. When our dog still ate 3 times a day, she ate at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm.

That was my thought. The dog gets fed three times in 11 hours and then is expected to go 13 hours with nothing, which seems a bit off.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I was going to say feed him later too. Can you sleep well when you're hungry? When we were feeding our puppy 3 times a day, we fed him at 7am, 1pm, 7pm. He pooped every night when we took him out for the last time usually around 9:30-10 and then had no problem sleeping until 6:30-7.

You might also want to look into changing dog foods. There was one time I switched ours to a new food and it must of had a lot of sugar in it or something because it turned him into a crazy menace. It took me a bit to realize that was the only thing that we changed, but when I switched him back to his old food his behavior returned to normal.

Also, is his crate big enough? Our pup likes to sprawl out when he sleeps and even though he was well within the weight limit of the smaller crate, we noticed him moving around a lot at night. We got him a bigger crate and he slept much more soundly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he’s hungry?? 3pm for dinner seems early. When our dog still ate 3 times a day, she ate at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm.

That was my thought. The dog gets fed three times in 11 hours and then is expected to go 13 hours with nothing, which seems a bit off.

Thanks everyone. There was a critical typo in the first post, which is that his dinner is at 6pm not 3pm.

Of course now I'm so confused. Is he getting too much activity, too little, is he sleeping too close to us, or too far away. Gah.

For the trainer, I appreciate your expertise. Why is the flirt stick bad for his joints? He sits, stays, I drag the thing on the ground and leave it still, tell him to go, he points at it watches it, i give it a little tug so it moves and he pounces/chases it for a moment, then brings it to me and gets a treat, and repeats. He's a pointer so I think it's fun for him and afterwards he goes inside and lounges. The only way I would think it could be bad for joints is if people used it like you do with cats with them jumping around--is that what you meant?

Obvs I'm no dog expert since I thought he was a tween... my last dog was super easy and I've probably blocked out the puppy period haha/cry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck? Let that poor dog out of that crate and get him a nice dog bed at the foot or side of your bed. Take him out if he still cries and then get back to bed. Crying will stop right away.

You obviously don’t have a puppy.

We did this with our puppy and it worked just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck? Let that poor dog out of that crate and get him a nice dog bed at the foot or side of your bed. Take him out if he still cries and then get back to bed. Crying will stop right away.

You obviously don’t have a puppy.

Not PP, but we did the same actually. Obviously depends on the puppy, but ours calmed down out of the crate, found his sleeping spot, and sleeps through the night at 5 months old.

Exactly. I do actually have a dog who was a puppy once and know what worked for many dogs. Dog is a pack animal and wants to belong. Odd how so many people want the baby in their room and even cosleeping but find the idea that dog can do just fine on a nice little rug too much to believe.

[Anonymous]

Put him to bed at 9 ok, but when you go to bed, take him out again. Cut off liquids at 7 pm. If he doesn’t chew the bed get him a comfy bed. Cover the crate with a sheet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 6 month old dog now has this schedule:

Eats: 6am, noon, 3pm—poops right after

Normal, happy, slightly naughty all day.

9pm goes into crate for bed

3 FLIPPING AM wakes up, cries barks howls paws at crate. Wants to get up and be awake from 3-4:30 then goes back to sleep until 6. Up at 6, eats/poops, then sleeps until 9 when he’s up for the rest of the day with just short naps here and there.

Crate is in our bedroom and can’t let him “cry it out” bc wakes the whole family. Tried crate in living room and then he won’t go to bed.

Un-snipped so can’t go to daycare but has adequate exercise.

I’m up with him 3-4:30 then can never fall back asleep and it’s breaking me.

I’m wondering about a second crate in the basement (finished basement, heated not dank, etc) …if he wakes up at 3, move him to the basement crate? Would he learn to sleep longer in our room if the alternative is being alone? Any other ideas? We also tried taking him out at 10 or 11 to pee and that made no difference. It’s not that his bladder is bursting.

Also tried a white noise machine in case he was hearing something that’s waking him but that didn’t do much.

That's tough. Have you tried letting him cry it out? He knows you are going to let him out so he keeps it up.

[Anonymous]

Any update, op? Have you changed his feeding schedule to twice a day? My dog is large and I was told to feed him twice a day starting at 4 months old. Just curious how it is going.

[Anonymous]

We have a large breed who could hold it from 9-6 no problem. At 6 months she started doing the same thing and the trainer told us it’s because she was ready for some freedom. We started opening the door to her crate so she could go in and out as needed and that stopped the middle of the night wake ups. We did a baby gate in an area where her crate was, not in our bedroom so logistically might not work for you but maybe you could move him?