Sleeping

[diane silver]

Emma has been sleeping in a crate in our bedroom and doing wonderfully - sleeping through the night and not making a sound until we open it in the morning. However, last night she seemed restless and started crying at around 5 a.m. We took her out, she peed, but it was clear that she was not going back into the crate. So . . . on the bed she came and slept until I got up (8:30!). My question is: am I going to be able to get her back into the crate tonight, or have I now crated a "monster". We really don't want her to sleep in our bed and would like her to eventually sleep on a dog bed (or her crate) in our bedroom. What do you think? I'm also wondering if she's outgrowing the nighttime crate - it's one of those plastic vari-kennels. We do have a wire crate downstairs that is a bit larger and I can move that into the bedroom.

[Becky]

We dealt with this same thing earlier this week. Lucy had been sleeping through the night for awhile but recently had been waking up earlier and earlier and eventually waking up in the middle of the night. We let her out and then she would make a beeline for our bed. Since we know she is capable of holding her bladder from 11:30-7:00 a.m., we were pretty sure she didn't really have to go potty and we couldn't decide if she was waking up because she was outgrowing her plastic crate or just preferred to sleep with us in the bed. Rather than spending a ton of money on a new crate, we ended up getting her a soft fleece blanket and "sprucing up" her current crate a little bit (added a couple of our old t-shirts and socks so it would smell "nice" to her and a soft stuffed animal (that she has started to chew on but hasn't destroyed yet!). That night we decided to ignore her cries and whines. Sure enough, she woke up at about 3:00 a.m. and started making a racket, crying, whining and banging on her crate door. The noises lasted for a looooong 15 minutes and it was SOO hard to ignore but eventually she settled down and fell back asleep. Since that night we haven't had any problems and she very patiently waits for us to get up to let her out in the morning.

So...as for your question re: creating a monster, I think that if you are tough with her tonight and just physically place her into the crate and leave her there no matter how much she protests, she'll get the idea and you should be back on track. It may take her a few nights but she'll get it soon enough. Lucy usually goes into her crate with no problems at night but if she is particularly wound up, we will let her relax a bit with us on our bed and then after a few minutes of calm, gently pick her up and transfer her to the crate. So you could try that - let her up on the bed after she pees and then wait for her to relax before placing her back in the crate for the rest of the night.

[Adina P]

How old is she again? She's a mini right? So you COULD physically just place her back in her crate...right? I would just put her back...and during the day play some games to make the crate more attractive and work on obedience. But at night...just plop her back in, toss in a couple treats after her, close the door, put in ear plugs and go back to sleep.