Potty Training / Sleeping through the night

[Qzee]

Hi, I have a 4-1/2mth old sheltie named Sabrina. We have had her for 3 weeks now. She eats dry kibble 2xs a day (5am and 5:15pm). She goes for a walk 2x/day and plays in the yard in the morning and the evening w/ my 2yo labrador. Once it is dark out the two dogs are locked in kitchen/dining room to play more until it is time for bed. Both dogs go out for a final potty break anywhere between 10 and 11pm. Sabrina has only had about 4 nights where she slept until 5am. The other nights she starts barking from her crate as early as 2am to 4-4:30am. I get up and take her out for a potty break, which she always goes either pee or poop & sometimes both! Back to the crate after we come back in and she goes back to bed until 5am.

I have one of my lab's beds next to the crate and the lab stays with her sometimes all night, sometimes she waits until Sabrina is in deep sleep and she comes in the bedroom by us to sleep on her other bed.

Last night was a bad night... I took the dogs out around 10:30pm for their final potty break - they both pee'd. I did not walk them last night (which I know is routine and wonder if it makes that much of a difference). Well Sabrina started barking to go out for a potty break at 2am. Took her out, she only peed, then back to the crate. At 2:55am she started barking again, I got up again, took her out figuring she had to poop - nope, she walked around for 10-15mins just sniffing and looking at the tennis balls on the ground wanting to play. I brought her in and she ran over to the labs bed and laid down. My husband, who never snores, was snoring last night so I rolled myself up on the dog bed (it's a big thick memory foam bed) and tried to go to sleep and keep an eye on Sabrina. I honestly did not want to put her back in the crate because I felt she was going to start barking in an hour again.

She will bark when we go in the other area of the house because she wants to join us, but will be quiet after she realizes we are ignoring her barking.

I am working on about 4hrs of sleep today

One night about 1-1/2 wks ago my husband got up and took her out, she peed and pulled him back into the house. Less than an hour later she started barking and would not stop. I got out of bed to find that she pooped in her crate. So she does seem to be alerting for a potty break.

My question is, what do we do? I knows this breed is super smart and will figure out how to get their way. My husband suggested putting the crate in the bedroom, that maybe she will sleep longer. I know there are many of you that have gone through this. Once she is older she will have full run of the house when we are home and have her own bed in the bedroom to sleep on. My lab was out of her crate by 7mths old, but she also slept through the night from the time we got her at 10wks old. Larger dog, larger bladder??

I have tried taking the water away around 8:30-9pm. Sabrina is not a big drinker unless it is during the day playing outside.

I need ideas on how to handle this. My body is getting drained from all this interrupted sleep.

 

[Hanne]

I guess I'm not much help --but having a puppy is exactly the same as having a baby (no a puppy is actually easier )

I always have my puppies in my bed until they are toilet trained at night, which they quickly become, because I get up with them in the beginning two times and later one time, it is so easy, because when they start to walk around in bed, then immediately out with them, and we do not enter before they have done something.

I would absolutely take the cage into the bedroom, why should she not be with you and the Lab - otherwise, she is outside of the pack

There is also something I might not fully understand:
-"She will bark when we go in the other area of the house because she wants to join us"

Why should she be in the cage when you go somewhere else??? probably goes your Lab with you and she naturally wants to be with you and you have no way of knowing whether she need going out to pee ore poop.
but maybe I misunderstood something.

-" I did not walk them last night (which I know is routine and wonder if it makes that much of a difference)-

What I personally believe precisely routines for puppies before bedtime is important.

I also do not know how good it is to play with the Lab in the evening, maybe she is driven too high up.

The only comfort I can give you is that about 6 months. So they begin to have check on their body and get control of their pee and poop

I can tell you that Minnie was driving me crazy about 5 months.
She slept all night, were only out a few times a day, but when it was time we had to eat dinner, and she got her food so she would go out 4-6 times between 17-18.
I simply did not believe it was true, and she just wanted to be naughty. (but she had to pee ore poop every time)
It was the same every night, even when we had guests.
But suddenly from one day to the other, then stopped this and there was no doubt she had come to the point where she could control her body.

She is 10 months on Sunday and have only had one accident indoors - so she is definitely a great girl

 

[corbinam]

To be honest, I think you just have to be patient. It's a great sign that Sabrina tells you when she needs to potty. As long as the nightly outdoor visits are kept short and productive (no playing, just down to business) I've found that they decrease over time as she grows and learns to hold it.

I've never been one to want them to have to wait it out as long as they're being "honest" about really needing to potty. If they are crying for attention (i.e. you take them out and nothing happens/they want to play) then that's a different story. To avoid that--take her out on a leash (even if you have a fenced yard), and give her just a couple laps around your yard. If nothing happens, back into the crate she goes. No treats, no playing, no cuddles.

 

[Qzee]

Thanks for the advice....

When we are in the other room of the house Sabrina is not in the crate and the lab is in there with her. When we go to bed, we open the baby gate that blocks the dogs off from the rest of the house and leave it up to our lab as to what she wants to do. The lab tends to stay with Sabrina for most of the night.

The only time Sabrina is left alone in the kitchen/dining room loose is after her walk. I let the dogs play in the morning then I take Sabrina for a walk around the neighborhood. When I get back I switch dogs and take the Lab for a walk. She is tired after all the play time and the walk that she has not done anything destructive. I have also done this in the evening because it is challenging to walk the two dogs together. I also want to take my time walking with Sabrina so she learns how to walk on a loose leash properly.

When I take her out in the middle of the night (or should I say early morning) she is always on a leash. I know she would want to play if not. My husband cut her morning break short one time and Sabrina ended up pooping in her crate. She did bark but we figured it was her trying to tell us to let her out, not go potty again. So anytime she barks in the middle of the night I jump up to take her out. I think she is figuring this out fast.

I know it will get better as she gets older. But I worry because I understand that they are very smart dogs and will try to wrap you around their paw. I don't want her to start barking just to get me to take her out of the crate.

Shelby, the lab, sometimes stays in the other room with her all night - moreso now than when we first got her. Shelby considers Sabrina "her puppy" and wants to be with her all the time. It is very sweet of my lab, but I think she is starting to hate the barking too.

 

[Mom2Melli]

Honestly, at 4-1/2 months, when they have to go they have to go. She's trying to get your attention for a reason. You would likely improve the situation if she were in the same room with you seeing you two and the other dog all sleeping and she will settle down more.

Both my shepherd & my sheltie as pups got one middle of the nighter. Now the shepherd is 4, my older sheltie is unknown age, and the pup is just a year. I still give them one middle of the nighter. I feel it is unreasonable to ask a dog to hold it so long -- admittedly, we go to be early because the husband is a commuter so our nights can actually be 9 hours.

I had the pups' crate in the bedroom (both dogs when they were pups). They were perfectly content there in the room. I had both dogs out of the crates at 6ish months, but they slept/sleep on the bed with me so I would wake if there was a problem.

Try putting the crate in your room. I had two crates, one downstairs more like a play pen and one upstairs in the bedroom. The downstairs one was gone first and then the bedroom one later.

 

[Jean]

Blaze (about 3 months now) sleeps beside our bed in his little soft carrier. It can zip up like a little sleeping bag or it can be left open. He seems to really like it though it looks like if he doubles his size, we'll be looking for another larger "bed". There's no whining or howling. When we first got him I'd set the alarm clock for every three hours and then every four hours and now I am prepared to take him out when he sees fit but he seems to have decided to sleep through the night.

Have used the sleeping in the bedroom along with us method before with other dogs I've owned. I really think they want to be in the same room as their owners (the ones they love). At the risk of being accused of being too saccharine, I think that if the dogs aren't allowed to sleep in the same room as their owners, they feel abandoned and then they whine or howl for attention.

 

[mimiretz]

As humans, we value independence -- especially North American humans. For the most part, we encourage our babies to sleep alone all night as early as possible, and teach them to play alone, too. Dogs are pack animals; being a part of the pack is vitally important to them. When they're separated from the pack it's dangerous. So when you leave her alone in her crate, even if your Lab sometimes, or even most of the time, stays with her, that's telling her that she's not really a part of the pack -- she's alone, and therefore in danger.

I therefore agree that at least part of the solution is to put the crate in your room so that she feels a part of the pack. We always had Oberon in our bed, and he slept through the night by 4 months.

 

[Qzee]

So last night we took her water up around 9:30 (she wet her lips at about 9pm, but didn't really drink much). She went out for her final potty break at 11pm. At 2am she started barking. Come on, 3 hours.... This time we stayed quiet and she stopped barking. At 4am she started barking again, again we remained quiet and she stopped barking even faster than earlier. I got up at 4:55am (5 mins before my husband's alarm goes off) and took her out to pee - which she did, but she did not pull me to her spot like she sometimes does when her bladder is about to burst. Maybe she is learning our schedule. I am now questioning the barking since I am starting to wonder if it is attention barking - "let me out".

She does not bark when we put her in her crate. She seems to understand "lights out."

I will try the crate in the bedroom tonight and see if she still barks. The two dogs cuddle on the one bed all the time, but I can't trust her yet to be free during the night. I am very tempted to try it, but I will hold out a little longer. She will need to learn to love the crate since I plan on competing with her in agility and when it is not her turn to go, she will be either in a crate or an X-pen...

 

[Jean]

She will need to learn to love the crate

Not a problem for my previous dog. We'd Just move the crate into the bedroom at night. (My granddaughter would call it "my dog's little house".) And not a problem for my Sheltie, 3 month old Blaze, he loves his little carrier-bed in our bedroom. (And it's small enough that I can use it not only for his bed there, but to take him out to different places--I bet it could even fit in his larger crate which we keep in an area where we "other members of his pack " congregate.)

 

[BarbV]

First question.....how large is the crate? It should be no bigger than room for the dog to lay down. Any bigger and pup may decide to pee in one corner and sleep in another.

Once you have the crate the right size, you are doing right to ignore the middle of night whines. I taught my dogs a code phrase......"Its NOT time", and all of them learned to settle once I said this. With Callan, I never had a single accident in his crate. I'm an early to bed person, so his last pee was 9 p.m. and he easily lasted till 5 a.m. at 10 weeks old. Then 6 a.m. Which is when I get up to get ready for work anyway.

Any accidents he had were during the day when I did not watch him close enough. It was super easy to train all my dogs to sleep through the night. Always in my bedroom, but I never reacted to the first whines.

At 4.5 months there is really no reason why she would need to pee in the middle of the night. Truly! In rest mode, after eating and already done her business, she should shut down and sleep through the dark hours.

There is also no reason to stay up to 11 p.m. You are just putting yourself through torture. If dog has peed and pood within 2 hours of eating and playing, everyone can go to bed.

Stay firm and like I said, check our your crate size. If dog whines, speak to the dog, but don't get up. Tell her quietly to hush. Truly, I've gone through 3 sheltie pups and I've never had a sleepness night after 3 months.