# 7 month pup suddenly waking up at night??!



## mozart1 (May 15, 2014)

Puppy is 7 months old, we got him at 14 weeks and started to crate train right away. He has done great sleeping through the night (11pm or midnight until around 6am)-- sleeping in his crate in the living room-- until 2 days ago. He'd start whining around 2:30am, then on-and-off barking for 30 minutes to an hour. It's not a non-stop bark-- more a sporadic thing, then he will stop for an hour or two, then rinse and repeat. The only thing I could think of is that I was away for a week last week, and my husband, for some reason, spent several nights on the couch and let the dog sleep on the floor by him overnight. I keep thinking that he perhaps got used to this, prefers it, and now refuses to sleep in the crate. The last 2 nights, we'd ignore him for the most part, but when he'd get really loud around 5am (we live in an apartment in Manhattan, where neighbors are close and rather opinionated!), we'd take him out and put him in the bedroom (not on the bed, but on the floor, where he would continue to sleep for an hour or so). So i'm not sure if it's because of the week that he spent outside the crate at night, or is it because he's just hot? But, also - he's crated during the day and is totally fine. He gets 1 full hour during lunch of walking, then another hour at night with me, then play time and training, so he gets a lot of exercise. Is this hormones, the heat, or just suddenly not liking the crate because of the change in routine last week? Would appreciate some input and advice. I'm really missing my sleep! (sorry for the long post)


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

The temperature could be a possibility. Since he's crated, he doesn't have the option of moving to a cooler area or from his bed to a wood or tile floor. 

Any reason that you can't let him sleep on a dog bed rather than his crate? Or maybe try leaving the crate door open and see where he chooses to sleep (like if he moves to the floor or closer to an air vent during the night)? Make sure to clean up well first and pick up any tempting-to-chew items off the floor or low tables.


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## mozart1 (May 15, 2014)

We're crating him now because we still don't fully trust him to be out overnight. The couple of times we brought him into the room at 5am (where the A/C is on, and i'm assuming he likes it), he'd sleep alright, but would get up at times and start chewing on stuff. I'm tempted to bring the crate into the room, but worried that it might confuse him because during the day, he's outside in the crate in the living room. Will this be worth a try?




Shell said:


> The temperature could be a possibility. Since he's crated, he doesn't have the option of moving to a cooler area or from his bed to a wood or tile floor.
> 
> Any reason that you can't let him sleep on a dog bed rather than his crate? Or maybe try leaving the crate door open and see where he chooses to sleep (like if he moves to the floor or closer to an air vent during the night)? Make sure to clean up well first and pick up any tempting-to-chew items off the floor or low tables.


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

If the A/C is only in the bedroom, he'd probably be more comfortable crated in the bedroom than in the living room. Don't see why it would confuse him since lots of dogs sleep in a different room than they spend the day in.


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## mozart1 (May 15, 2014)

An update on this. We put another crate in the bedroom, where the A/C is, and he seemed to sleep better in it. He'd still whine a bit when he goes into the crate, but stop after a minute. BUT, the past 2 nights, he would still wake up at 4am, and whine, bark, and not let up with the complaining to be let out. Since we're scared to get kicked out of our apartment by complaining neighbors, we've had to open the door (i know this is NOT the right thing to do, but after 30 minutes of barking at 4am, we felt we had no choice). I'm really upset because i think this was brought about by the fact that my husband letting him sleep on the floor all week last week-- so i feel like our 3 months of training before that just went to waste. The options i'm considering now are: 1) either give in and just let him sleep on his dog bed at night, in the bedroom (and just clean up to make sure he can't munch on things, or 2) re-train sleeping in the crate - which will, for sure, involve more very noisy nights and potentially very angry neighbors.



Shell said:


> If the A/C is only in the bedroom, he'd probably be more comfortable crated in the bedroom than in the living room. Don't see why it would confuse him since lots of dogs sleep in a different room than they spend the day in.


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## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

Have neighbours complained?
If I was in your circumstance and my neighbours were ones to complain I'd give in and let him be. After all I'd probably be aiming for letting my dog have constant free roam of the house and she'd eventually be let out in the evenings.
If I knew my neighbours I'd ask them (the ones sharing walls with you) to give you a week and apologize for the whole barking thing to attempt to retrain. You don't have to solely retrain this at night. You can do exercises and training during the day as well. Turning his crate into a place he likes to be and encouraging him to rest there when he does get tired during the day. Crating him for an hour while you do something in a different room and encouraging silence by letting him out when he's quiet/settled.

My puppy did this too at about 6 months old. But there was no reason when she started with me. She just started waking up at 4am every morning and started barking and whining on and off until I got up at 6am. I own a house and my roommate is hardly there so I didn't have a problem waiting her out. I just shut my bedroom door, opened my window and turned on my fan and I could easily tune her out. She tried this for probably a solid week and then gave up and slept until 6am again. She's now doing a lot better, I even can get a few 8am weekend mornings and it's beautiful. I can't wait until I hit 9am for weekends, that sounds lovely. She'll be 7months in three days.


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## doggiepop (Feb 27, 2014)

i would go to my neighbors and explain to them that i'm having some training issues. that
might buy you some leeway. then i would take my dog out for a walk if he started to whine 
at 4:00 am. from 4 months old to 8 months old our dog would wake one of us up at 4:00 am 
to go out. we never refused him. we have a backyard so it's lot easier to let him out as opposed
to an apartment.


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## steven17 (May 21, 2014)

My puppy did this at around 7 months too. We tried everything, and eventually gave up and bought him a dog bed to go next to our bed. He does chew things sometimes (his favorite is blankets, which we can't exactly remove from the bedroom, haha). But if he gets enough exercise he's usually happy to sleep through the night in his bed. He's also still good in his crate during the day, so I never did figure out why he suddenly wouldn't sleep there.


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