My dog doesn’t let me sleep

[coolbreeze22]

My 1y3mo old Pug has, in the past few months or so, acquired this habit of waking either me or my mum up (depending on who he sleeps with) every S I N G L E morning at around 4-5 am, and even though we have since then started to get up to open up the backyard for him to pee and eat, he won’t let us sleep again after that. This has been going on for long enough that I’m getting mad at him and has been affecting our sleep badly. Does anyone have any advice to teach him to let us be? We have also an 8yr old Schnauzer who does the exact opposite - she won’t pester us until we’re fully awake.

 

[lexi1996]

@coolbreeze22 As a fellow pug owner…YES my pug wakes up at 6 and needs to eat, go potty, and get some cuddles before he’s ready to leave me alone. He was crate trained, but even then his barks would wake me up from his crate. I could ignore him for 2 hrs straight and he’s still sticking his paws under my door sniffing. Best cure I’ve found is letting him sleep near me till I go to bed, and have his breakfast ready! Gives you an extra hour at least..

 

[forthesakeofmybeloved]

@coolbreeze22 Are you exercising him enough? How is his mental stimulation?

Have you been taking him for a long walk right before bed to make sure he’s empty?

 

[coolbreeze22]

@forthesakeofmybeloved That might be a good idea to try, though wouldn’t he be thirsty after the walk and then gulp a lot of water? Seems a bit cruel to let him go to sleep without water

 

[forthesakeofmybeloved]

@coolbreeze22 I definitely would not keep him away from the water dish. For his size, he shouldn’t be drinking crazy amounts of water but I don’t know his physical condition or the temperature outside to gauge it.

If over-drinking is an issue, I would definitely talk to a vet because that will not resolve on its own.

I do about a 20-30 minute walk with my dogs before bed and this allows them to exercise and empty their bladders. If I don’t walk them, they wake me up in the middle of the night to go. It’s definitely worth a shot if you haven’t tried it yet.

When I potty train my fosters I try to take them out literally right before we’re about to go into bed. It buys me the most time for sleeping lol. Good luck.

 

[coolbreeze22]

@forthesakeofmybeloved That’s very fair though. To me it seems that he does withhold his pee throughout the night and then only wakes us up when he can’t hold it no more, the annoying part is that some days it is before 5am, but never after 7 or so. So I think it has to do with the last time he had a sizeable gulp - he’s not the type of dog that sips a bit at a time lol, but we’ll definitely try to walk him a bit before bed and I’ll let you know if it works thank you so much!

 

[robrog8999]

@coolbreeze22 Are you crating at all?

 

[coolbreeze22]

@robrog8999 We’ve done some crazy work to teach him to only pee outside as we live in a house, and in 80% of times he follows it - he’ll only do it inside if he really needs to. The problem seems that he’s been holding it for too long

 

[robrog8999]

@coolbreeze22 My dog does the same, she’s 3 and used to be an outside dog up until April of this year when she came to stay w us. It gets better, trust me. Hiccups happen, we’ve started crating to prevent her from having accidents, and then immediately taking her out so she does her business once a day at most. She doesn’t live in there, but it’s def a useful tool for upkeep and saves us $$$ in the cleaning supplies department.

 

[nikti21]

@robrog8999 Just teaching your dog to use his bed is good enough.

If your dog don’t have separation anxiety and if you don’t move it around too much there is no reason to crate training and to go through the mental burden it initially is to a dog.

 

[robrog8999]

@nikti21 I was asking OP, next time I need an opinion about it from you I’ll ask, thanks.

 

[coolbreeze22]

@nikti21 By the way, he does use his bed

 

[nikti21]

@coolbreeze22 Teach him to sleep on his bed. Then, put it on the living room. Let him wake up and do whatever when he wants.

Also, if you’re sure he doesn’t need to pee or eat, since you’ve tried it, don’t let him wake you up.
Ignore him until he learns to go find something to do by himself. Leave toys available.

 

[coolbreeze22]

@nikti21 That wouldn’t work, he’d scratch the door to get inside our rooms… the toy idea can be implemented though

 

[robrog8999]

@nikti21 LOL

 

[innerinnocence]

@coolbreeze22 Sound to me this dog does not know how to rest properly.