Whining in crate,just attention seeking or seriously needing to get out?

[Camilla and Darwin]

Darwin has always been great about sleeping all night in his crate, for eight hours. This past week or two, he has started whimpering in his crate progressively sooner and sooner, so we are now down to about six hours a night. He doesn't have diarrhea or sickness of any kind. He never used to whine at all in his crate, just waited quietly for us to come let him out. I wonder if perhaps he has caught on that if he whines, we will come let him out. (he has started doing the same thing if he wants to go out, which he hasn't done before) Should we ignore the whimpering, or is there a legitimate reason he could be doing this?

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Maybe Darwin's sleeping pattern is just out of whack. Peri did this a few weeks ago - woke us up every morning at 5:30 a.m. We gave her a kong to keep her quiet until usual wake up time, which is 6:15 a.m. She is back on course now.
Either Darwin really needs to go outside and potty OR he wants to be with you. Peri whines the second our alarm goes off - we have a new system where we get her out of her crate and let her come hang out on the bed for a while with us. She doesn't have to pee immediately at all - she just wants to be with us.
The odd thing is we have tried transitioning her to her bed in our room, but she doesn't like it. She wants the crate at night.

[Libby & Bentley]

We occasionally hear a whine from Bentley and this is what we do..we let him out of crate..let him outside..let him take a drink of water..then back in kennel. We don't play around as we don't want to encourage the behavior, but we also don't want to punish/ignore him if he legitimately needs something.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Thanks, like I said, I am afraid we will be encouraging a bad behavior by giving in ad letting him out. At the same time, I definitely don't want to ignore his need to pee, or even be with us. We want his crate to be a safe place that he enjoys being in! we have been letting him out to potty and then putting him right back in. Hopefully it will return to normal shortly.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I think it will - they go though these phases. Plus think about the clocks being pushed back an hour....that affects our dogs too!

[F, Calla & Luca]

I agree with what the others said basically. If I think Calla needs to go out, and it has been earlier since the clocks changed, I let her out and then depending on how early it is it's either back in the crate or in bed. If I think she doesn't need to go out, for example if she's been out a few hours before with no apparent problems , I'll tell her to be quiet and go back to sleep and she'll often do that. If she persists it's a quick out and back in the crate.

[Sandy]

Toby has started this too! Just in the last week - and when I let him out he really does have to pee. He's 19 months, and we've never had to do this before. When I re-crate him, he is very unsettled. It's almost as if he's too hot in there - he panted for an hour after I put him back in last night. I'm thinking maybe he is ready to sleep out of his crate. But....I know he'll jump on our bed, and I don't know if I want that either....

[Camilla and Darwin]

Darwin luckily stopped doing the whining thing after a week or so. He must have been adjusting to daylight savings!
As far as Toby goes, he may jump on your bed, but most likely won't stay there. Especially if he's been hot in his crate. Darwin never spends a whole lot of time on the couch or bed, it makes him too hot.

[Sandy]

It's just frustrating - Toby has never made a sound in his crate until now. And when I let him out, he does pee. Maybe we'll start the night in the crate, and end the night out of it if he has to get up.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Fudge got too hot in her crate and would pant and pant. I started leaving the door open and sometimes she would remain in her crate, but more often she would move to the hard, cold, floor. I try and get her to sleep with us, but she always wants the floor.

[Sandy]

Our cold, hard floor is on the main level, and our bedroom is upstairs, so I hope he behaves if he goes down there!