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Puppy Waking at Night/Advice Please


cossie
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Hi

We have a 5 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who is adorable!  On advice from breeder she has always had a crate which she loves and has no problem going in.  We have had her since August and she has always been crated at night in our room.  Right from the beginning she has slept right throught, she went out late at night and was fine through til 7 when we got up..........however for the last 4 nights she has woken up every night.

Sometimes it's within a hour of us going to bed, others it's been 3am.......I've tried everything from ignoring in case she just wants attention, to checking if she needs the loo, which she never has...and I'm at a loss as to why she would suddenly start doing this.

Has anybody else had experiences like this or any advice on what I should do during the night to stop it, ie ignore and let her bark etc?

Routine hasn't changed in anyway...only difference is we now have central heating and I think the first night she may have been hot as the timer didn't turn it off...apart from that we have done nothing different since we got her in August.  I don't know if that night it was genuine and I let her out for a while to cool down, and now she is thinking she can do this every night and I'll get up and let her out.......

Many thanks

Debs

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Our puppy did this at around the same age.   In fact she is now 18 months old, and even now does it occasionally (like last night actually !).   She wasn't crated but used to whimper and whine from the kitchen.    We decided in the end that the first couple of times she had been dreaming and woke up and thought we had left her, and then after that it was just a bit of a game.   Whine, make owners drag themselves out of bed, wait for them to open front door, look at them as if they were insane, wonder why they look peeved and not up for a good old night-time game ?   Sound familiar ?   In the end we just told her to shut up ! and ignored her, whereby she quickly learned that if she really needed to go out to the toilet she would give a couple of quiet barks and we would get the message and take her out, but only on a lead.  We learned this the hard way, when we would let her out and she would go off on a frolic and you would be standing their like an idiot in the freezing cold in an inadequate dressing gown, waiting for her to finish her pre-toilet game.

The other thing we did, as I recall, is to try to not let her sleep too much during the evening.    We found that this behaviour happened more in her first winter, when instead of running around playing outside in the evenings, because it was colder and we were inside she would come back from her walk and go to sleep on her sofa.  Because of the darker evenings, she was being walked earlier, and thus getting back and sleeping very early.     So we used to wait until she had woken up from her post-walk nap, and then play a game with her indoors - you know sit watching television while she pulls on the end of a rope toy - you don't even have to get out of your chair !!!  That seemed to help a bit also.

We did find that her nocturnal activity increased enormously just before and during the time she was in season, which in her case was well over a year old.    Five months does seem very young to be coming into season though so its probably not that.

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Debs,

I really can't add anything more constructive to londoneye's post  but have you tried putting an old jumper with your scent on it in the cage with her.  We had an American Cocker Spaniel who had similar behaviour and an old sweatshirt belonging to my husband did the trick.

Pushkin

 

 

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[quote user="Gardian"][quote user="Pushkin"]

putting an old jumper with your scent on it in the cage with her. 

[/quote]

I do this every night with OH, but it doesn't work.

[/quote]

Maybe you would fare better wiv er'indoors by attending obediance classes!........................................

...............ouch!

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Hi

Many thanks for all the useful comments from my posting and for emails received.  I did what was suggested yesterday - had a later evening walk, didn't let her get too comfy on my lap, althought she kept looking at me as if to say' will you sit still'!  Then we had lots of evening playtime and she was shattered by the time bedtime came!

So it was an 11pm bedtime, with an old t-shirt of mine in her crate, and didn't have a peak out of her until just before 8 this morning!

So fingers crossed if I do this each day she should settle back down and sleep through again - here's hoping, but I'm not getting to carried away just yet!  Just grateful for one full nights sleep!!

Thanks again

Debs

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