Quote:
Originally Posted by Sazzer
We have had Suki for 4 days now and are in need of some advice! She's a 10 week old westie pup and we're having problems at night. During the day she is downstairs I'm taking her out every hour or so - she seems to be getting the hang of going to the toilet outside already and we only had one wee in the house yesterday when I took my eyes off her for 2 minutes!
The problem is at night. For the first few nights we had her bed in our room upstairs (the downstairs is alarmed at night) but she found it really hard to settle and kept trying to get up on our bed. We ignored her but didn't get much sleep! She also weed and pooed upstairs during the night.
I spoke to a friend who has a dog and she recommended crate training so she has her own little den and learns that this is her safe place to sleep. So yesterday we got her used to her crate, making it cosy with a blanket over and putting toys/food in there. She was going in there on her own accord during the day and seemed pretty happy. I knew it was going to be a hard night for her with the change but it was a nightmare!
We moved her crate upstairs into the room next to ours (we don't really want to encourage her to sleep in our room so thought we'd get her used to the other room asap) but she cried for hours. I went in at about 2am (still crying) and she had pooed in her bed so I got her out and cleaned up and she went back in again. Then she carried on crying for about an hour - so hard not to go to her but we didn't. I got up at 7am and she had pooed again and had some diarrhea this morning poor little thing.
I took her straight out this morning and she pooed outside, although still runny.
I feel absolutely awful about leaving her crying last night and her being so upset 
Should I get up in the night to let her out to the toilet, even if she is still crying? I don't want to teach her that crying will mean she gets let out and attention. But then I know she's only a puppy and can't hold her bladder for that long.
Any advice appreciated x |
Hi,
You are doing the right thing by crate training, and it's normal for her to cry and whine when left alone, until she's settled in with her new family and new routine. But you are quite right, you shouldn't go to her when she's whining/crying, wait for a quiet moment (this only needs to be 5 secs), then go to her, but only if you think it's because she needs to eliminate.
Do you have a daily routine going, this would be really helpful, so write up a schedule for
- feed time
- toilet time
- play/training time
- crate time (she should go in during the day for a few hours here and there to rest/sleep, or when you can't supervise; so that she can't practice undesired behaviours, build up time gradually)
- socialisation time
- handling time (where you practice grooming her, cleaning ears etc)
Getting her in to a routine will really help with toileting and settling her in, make her environment fairly predictable
Some pups need to be given the opportunity to eliminate at least once during the night, so make sure she has eliminated last thing before you put her to bed. Then don't wait for her to wake you, you go wake her up half way though sleep time, take her outside, no play, no fuss. When she eliminates give her calm, quiet praise, and then straight back to bed.
I think you will also find this helpful:
Successful Crate Training