sleep suggestions.

[Katie]

My puppy is 15 weeks old - had her since 8 weeks old. 

One of my biggest problems is her lack of sleep.  She absolutley hates her cage and it's getting worse.  When I take her to bed around 11:00 pm she usually tired and calm.  The minute I step in our bedroom she starts to get anxious, when I put her in the cage she is awake and nervous.  I lay down on the floor with her hoping she will settle down and go to sleep.  She will finally fall asleep but it's short lived.  She seems to pant and breath so heavy while she's in the cage.  Last night she slept 11-1 then 1-5.  I use the word slept loosly.........I was on the floor with her most of the night.  Even during the day when I fold laundry or shower she is anxious in our room.  I leave her cage door open hoping she'll begin to warm up to it.  I've given her a teddy bear and a nice pillow too.

She seems to get better sleep on my kitchen ceramic floor during the day.  she never pants or seems anxious on the ceramic.  

I know she's a puppy but it doesnt seem like her waking up is for potty breaks.

How can I get her to settle down and have some good quality zzzz's???

I do walk her before bed which has helped.

I also had a blanket over her cage but that just seemed to freak her out more. 

[Jolene, Sassparilla & Josie]

I did the same thing Katie did. My girl has separation anxiety and all the crate would do is throw her into a panic attack and she'd start hyperventilating (day or night)! I have two dogs and even crating them together didn't work? We gave up and I just closed her off into my room and she does great. She doesn't like to sleep in my bed but sleeps the night through on a dog bed along side my bed. Everyone is happier and we all get a full nights sleep.

[Laura and Angus]

We stopped having our pup in the crate around 4 months (or so). However, I did not sleep well because I was constantly worried he would get into things - which he did. Does your puppy use the crate during the day? If not, you probably want to do some work to get her used to the crate during the day, so it's not so stressful. We have relied heavily on our crate because our pup stays in there when we are out of the house. However, if she's fine during the day with the crate and just not at night, I don't see why she should have to sleep in there...though for safety reasons, I'd keep her in a specific area. Do you have a pen that you can bring into your room, so that your puppy is in a safe area away? We never want our puppy sleeping through the night with us in our bed, so even at 1 year old, we let him lay on the bed with us while we're getting ready for bed, but once it's actual bedtime with lights off, he has to go onto his bed or he moves to the bathroom tile where it's cooler.

[John M]

Winston hated the crate too. I changed his attitude when I purchased a used end table to place the crate on right next to my bed at the exact same height of the bed--this allowed him to walk from the crate to me lying on the bed as he pleased. I would open the door with him on my bed and put his toys in the crate. He would walk in and out without any problem. Then I would darken the room and put him in so that he could still see me. He initially preferred outside but within a couple of days he was going in on his own--I didn't even have to close the door anymore.

Have you tried the Snugglepuppie? 

I think I'm lucky though because Winston now 11 months pretty much has free reign of the house when I am at work, He has his toy box and pretty much takes 4 to 8 toys to my bed and that's it. Never gets into anything.

[Elizabeth Harlow]

My 13 week old doesn't care for the crate at night either. He sleeps next to the bed on his dog bed, but blocked in by our platform bed, the nightstand, the bedroom wall, and a laundry basket at the foot of the bed that has free weights in it (so it won't move easily). He quiets right down at bedtime and would probably sleep through the night if I could sleep through the night on my own. I tend to get up once or twice and then he wants to get up too, of course. But after I take him outside to potty he settles right down again. I find him sneaking away in the middle of the day to take naps there on his own (the weighted laundry basket isn't there during the day). This situation has worked well because he is super close to me, but not in my bed, but also can't get up to hijinks. 

[Rhoda and Asta]

Asta has always slept in my bedroom. He alternates between my bed and the hardwood floor (it's cooler). Hopefully you can try this and see if it works. Good luck.

[Katie]

I dont work outside the home, so we spend alot of time together.  I'm hoping she will eventually have free roam of the house. 

I've started putting her in the laundry room when I leave during the day and she seems to like it better.  She has her food, ceramic floor, air vent and plenty of room.  

She actually sleeps in the laundry room during the day even when I'm home.

She just doesnt feel comfortable at all in our bedroom.  I just spend two hours in my room with her hoping she would feel comfortable.  I cleaned, put laundry away etc........Come downstairs and  BOOM she lays down in the kitchen and is fast asleep. 

[Jolene, Sassparilla & Josie]

Sounds to me like he's associating your room with the crate and it's stressing him out??

[Diane, Hurley and Sidney]

Hurley did not stay in the crate more than a couple of weeks.  He was to restless.  So I started putting him on the bed with us at night and he slept through every night.  He stayed on the bed because he could not figure out how to jump off it.  

 He figured out how to jump up on the bed long before he attempted to jump off the bed.   I would put him on the bed at the same time every night saying 'bed, bed'.   When he started jumping up on the bed on his own I would say, 'bed, bed' while pointing at the bed and he would jump right up there, curl up and go to sleep.   Hurley is now 4 years old.  He doesn't sleep on the bed and hasn't for several years.  He prefers the cool tile.  But he always crashes at the same time every night coinciding with when I would put him to bed when he was little.   

You might want to consider letting him sleep with you at night to see how he does.   Just a thought

[Amanda Joyce]

Hi Katie,

Charlie is one now but he also wouldn't sleep in his crate - he'd get distressed and never seemed to settle. Letting him in our bed didn't work either because he always wanted to play. We ended up putting him in our downstairs bathroom, which we turned in to 'his' room. I would leave his crate open and a radio on low, he slept a lot better that way - I set a timer to let him out once a night, which was enough for him. So maybe the laundry is a workable answer?

Although my dog's older, he still can't be trusted to have run of the house, so he still goes in to that room (the bathroom) when I'm out. He's since transitioned to sleeping in a dog bed in our room (though he'll still jump in to bed when my husband leaves early for work).

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

One of our dogs was an anxious puppy and crating him simply did not work.  We put him on the foot of our bed and that is where he slept for the next eleven years.  However sometimes you just need more work acclimating the puppy to the crate with games.

[Katie]

I feel like a complete failure.  This is so frustrating!

We are not moving for forward - I'm causing her (and me) great anxiety and no she's barking all the time. 

Tried letting her sleep with me but she just wants to bite my arms off.

Tried letting her free roam the bedroom but she never lays now, jumps on my bed (to bite my arm off) or barks  at the door.  Her breathing is so fast........

I finally tool her downstairs and put her in the laundry room and I went back to bed.  We were able to get 3 hours of sleep.  

Now, I'm getting ready for work and shes fast asleep on the kitchen floor.

[Laura and Angus]

:( I feel for you because the first few months are HARD. We really struggled a lot of the time and were exhausted. It sounds like she has chosen the kitchen as a spot that she likes (perhaps because of tile or a cooler floor surface?). Is there a way to block off the kitchen and remove things from the floor for bedtime? We started using our kitchen as a "time-out" spot for our puppy when he was pretty young...we still do sometimes when he needs to settle down. We close the double doors and block the other side with a baby gate - at 1 year old Angus immediately knows to lay down when we do that and he calms down immediately. It may be worth it to put her in a place that she already has chosen as a comfortable spot. Perhaps worth a try?