So my 3 year old male doodle STILL doesn't sleep through the night... my son didn't either until he was six, so we haven't had a solid night's sleep in 10 years!! Rocky wakes us up to pee, and since we don't have a dog door (and won't be getting one because there's no place to put it), he does need our help to get outside. Other than attempting to train him to unlock the patio door and open it himself and relocking after he's done, does anyone have any good advice for getting a male dog to "hold it" for 7-8 hours? He goes right back to bed and falls asleep after he has peed, so I know he's not waking us to play or cuddle. We remove his water bowl at night, and make sure he pees right before bedtime. The vet says there's nothing wrong with his bladder or kidney function. We've tried to ignore him, but he gets restless, and paces around and whines until we let him out. My female dog has slept through the night since she was a baby, and has never requested to go out to pee in the middle of the night. I suspect male dogs have smaller bladders, but still!! Any advice/ideas would be much appreciated ;)
Halas is only 14 months old, but he doesn't always sleep through the night. He did fine in his kennel, but now that I let him sleep in my room, he wakes me up some nights to go outside. When he's really tired, he doesn't do it, so I think that may have something to do with it in his case. I should just try to wear him out more before going to bed. Sometimes I think he just wakes up and wonders if it's time to get up. I always let him out, because I don't want him to have an accident. I figure it's at least good that he lets me know, instead of just peeing somewhere in the house. If it's only an hour or so until we get up, I just tell him to lay back down, and he does. I'm sure your dogs are plenty worn out by the time they go to bed, since the 2 of them probably play a lot with each other. So I don't have any advice, but I'm going to follow this to see if I can use any of the advice you get.
I don't have any advice for you, but I can tell you that it's not because male dogs have smaller bladders...Jackdoodle normally urinates 3-4 times in a 24-hr. period, and he can (and does) easily hold it for 14 hours when he's being stubborn about going out in the rain. I adopted him @ 14 mos., so I don't have any idea what was done to make him this way, but it really isn't good for his kidneys; I almost wish I had your problem instead.
Thanks Tamara for this link! My friend has one of these, or a similar one. One night, her dog started barking like crazy, so she went downstairs and found a fair sized raccoon eating out of the dog's bowl! The raccoon didn't mind having an audience, so my friend had to go get the broom. The raccoon finally got the message and ran out the doggie door... the next day, they found him asleep in the dog house outside, he'd moved in!
I suppose the patio door solution would work if 1. we could put matching radio collars on Rocky and the door to prevent other critters from entering the house and 2. the price comes down ;) I will do some more product research, so I appreciate your idea!!
He should be able to sleep through the night without having to pee. One of our dogs, Mariner is on Phenobarb, which makes him drink a lot. We usually let him out about an hour before we go to bed and then right before we go to bed. He usually makes it through until the morning. Sometimes he will have to go out in the middle of the night. But I think that the mmore excercise he has gotten during the day makes him sleep deeper.
My suggestions:
let him out about an hour before he goes to sleep and then right before he goes to sleep
I agree with you, he should be able to hold it, but he isn't... I think he gets a lot of exercise compared to most other dogs I know (3-4 hours per day total off leash hiking/ball playing in park or yard/walking on leash + he runs around outside all the time and chases squirrels, plays with his sister etc). Plus, he has somehow decided to be our guard dog, so while his sister sleeps, he stays on alert to some extent. I will try your suggestion to get him to pee twice before bed time though, thanks !!
Ann, I am envious! Rocky spent many weeks in his crate after having shoulder surgery around the age of 1, and since that unhappy time, he's been refusing to use it. When he howls, we get zero sleep, so getting up once is better comparatively ;)
Rocky is not motivated by food at all. What he does love most of all, is a fresh tennis ball or squeeky ball. I have managed to get him to accept his dog house by putting a new ball in there for him, but he still won't go into a crate. I'm sure the whole crating for months experience was very traumatic for him, not only was he crated for many hours a day, but he was also in pain. So I've not been pushing the crate since I understand his aversion.
Amen to this... Ann as always you are so right! Creates are the BEST training tool! If there was only one tool that I could use to train a dog this would be the one I would choose.