Weaning dog(s) from human bed

[Discussing Labradoodles & Goldendoodles]

I have decided that my dogs should really learn to sleep on the floor or in their own beds. Noah (6.5 months) normally sleeps on the floor and then uses the doggie stairs to get on my bed sometime during the middle of the night. Sherlock (1 year) always sleeps on my bed. I took away the dog stairs last night and brought a bunch of dog beds into my room. Needless to say, Sherlock was very upset. He barked and cried for about 2.5 hours and then finally gave up. Since I live in an apartment, I can't allow him to bark at night - so every time he started up, I told him no and pushed his paws off my bed. Is saying no and acknowledging him going to make this process harder? Has anyone successfully weaned their dogs from the bed? How long did it take? Is it a bad idea to let your dogs sleep in your room (even if they aren't on your bed?) My main reason for getting my dogs to sleep on the floor is because Sherlock is too attached to me, and I think having him not sleep in my bed will hopefully give him more independence.

[Nina]

I have a similar but different problem. Sadie has decided that she doesn't like going into her crate at night. She doesn't get put in until she is asleep somewhere else in the house for a long stretch. Then I pick her up and say "night night time" and put her into the crate. For the last few nights, after I put her in, she has barked and cried. I live in a row house so like Jane I can't have barking/crying late at night since my next door neighbors won't tolerate it. I tried waiting her out last night, but could not handle the barking and crying. How do you deal with this and succeed? I took her out after 30 minutes of noise and sat in the dark living room with her on the floor nearby. Once she was asleep, I put her into the crate and she was quiet. I don't want to do this every night since I am the one who has lost sleep at night and in the morning when she gets up too early. How long do you have to ignore the noise before they stop? Sadie is almost 9 months old. I have noticed an increase in the last week with "crying to get attention". Is this a developmental thing? I am thinking that during the day when she cries of getting up and walking away from her. Maybe we should have a general discussion topic of adolescence and crying/barking and what to do. My tenant has also just gotten a Port Water Dog puppy (10 weeks) so Sadie barks and cries when they are home so that she can play. I have given in to this as well and let her out. She cries and cries to play...maybe calling her and giving her food and playing with her will work for a while, but she wants to go and play!

[Eileen Ross and Cody]

Do Doodle owners ever get a good night sleep? Cody has no trouble falling asleep, just staying asleep aleast until the sun comes up. It was 4:30 again. It's breakfast he wants. We have tried ignoring but he will bark and whine. After breakfast he will go back to sleep for a couple of hours.

[Kim]

I guess I'm just really lucky with the crate and Allie's sleep habits. She has never given me problems at night about having to go in her crate. She sleeps ALL night, and has since the day we got her (9 weeks)!!!! We put her to bed at 9:00pm and we get her up at 7:00am. She does get a little grouchy when we have to crate her during the day, but nothing too dramatic.

I guess I will thank her when I get home from work!!!!!

[fergie11]

I'm going thru the same thing and did with Fergie too. Fergie's good now so I have hope that this will eventually fade with Lucy to.

[Adina P]

My first thought was squirt him with a water gun at every attempt to complain or get up on the bed. But...aside from that and trying to think positive.... What if you worked on the "hush" or "quiet" command during the day and got that strong and/or rewarded him for moments of quiet on his dog bed. Or even worked on a 'go to bed' command and extended that out to mean 'go to your bed and lay there for a long time quietly'? Do you ever take naps in your bedroom? Maybe do a fake nap routine just for practice reinforcing good behavior (no paws on bed, not barking, going to bed, staying on bed quietly, etc...upping the ante little by little).