Won't sleep in his crate anymore

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psardo

Forums Regular
My sheltie is 6 months old. He just started whinning in the middle of the night. Thought he had to pee which is unusual for him to begin with. No problems before. Could not get him to settle down in his crate after so let him stay in the room next to me so we could get some sleep.
The next night he woke me up at 12:30 with the same problem. I ended up bringing him downstairs and having him sleep on his mat, next to the couch where I slept so the house could go back to sleep.
I have tried ignoring him for quite a while when it starts but it gets worse, like after 1/2 hour took him to pee, put him back and then the whinning continued for another 1/2 hour. By then the whole house was awake.
Any suggestions?
His crate is big enough
he doesn't sleep all day
he got neutered last week, but he was fine for a few days.
Any suggestions?
 
It sounds almost like an age thing. 6 months is right near the start of the teenage phase for a young Sheltie. Like any normal teenager, they will push your buttons to try and get what they want; which in this case is out of the crate at night.

If you want him to sleep in his crate at night, you are going to have to 100% ignore him. Find somewhere in the house you can put the crate where the noise won't disturb anyone, or the disturbance will not be as loud.

You can also try covering his crate with a blanket at bed time.

The worst thing you can do is give in to the demands because he'll learn that all he has to do is make a fuss and get his way. Shelties are very intelligent that way and it will be harder to untrain once it gets to that point.
 
some dogs get temporaty incontinence after neutering, there might be something that is bothering him? Does he pee as usual or more often, any signs of inflammation, is his bed gets just slightly wet with few drops of urine?
 
Thank you

Well, last night I was a little stressed thinking Cooper would wake up during the night. He did and started whimpering softly around 3. I totally ignored him wondering how long he would go on.
Luck for me, it lasted maybe 5-10 mins then he stopped. So far so good, I am sure he is going to continue testing me.
 
I agree...testing boundaries....

I'm dealing with the same with my own 3 year old boys. Suddenly they think that waking me up at 5:30 to go out (and no, they are not going to pee - they want to eat sunflower seeds at the bird feeder) and then bugging me to be fed at 6:30 a.m. is perfectly acceptable.

I'm pushing back 5 minutes at a time. And I will only let them out or feed them when they are quiet. The point is that it is ME who decides when they go out or are fed.
 
Leave his butt in there and sleep through it.

I agree with him testing your limits, he wants to know what he can get away with. I have a dog who will sleep until 11am if I don't get up, but put him in a crate overnight, and he is up at 0545, barking. My father insists on crating him when he stays over, then complains about the early barking. Duh?

My landlords SPoodle is doing this to her right now, and she is 4 1/2!
 
Sounds like classic boundaries testing. Did you try the tips you were given? Did these tips really worked for you? I'm asking cause my friend has same problem with a young poodle.
 
we are back on track, no more waking us up in the night. I was away last weekend and my husband said one night, he heard noises outside, my husband told him it was ok and all was well.
GLad to hear it
Thank you for all the suggestions.
 
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