Help! There's a dog in my bed...

[EmmalinaC]

We just got rid of the stair gates (DCs are 5 and 2.5) which is the first time DDog has had the run of the house at night...

If we lock him in the kitchen he cries and scratches the door, if we don't he creeps upstairs and slips into whichever bed he fancies... either ours or the DDs. He knows it's not allowed and doesn't do it when we're awake but he is so stealthy half the time we don't even realise he's crept in.

He's quite big (35kg) and we are regularly awoken by DD1 trying to throw him off her bed. We can't shut the girls bedroom doors (beacuse the handles are too high for them to open them if they need to) and really don't want to have stairgates forever but we're absolutely stumped as to how to train him not to do something he is doing on the sly and which he knows is forbidden IYSWIM

Any advice, please?! Or do we just lock him in the kitchen and accept that we will soon need a new door...?

How long did you go for shutting him in the kitchen? It will several nights for him to get the message that he's not coming out no matter how much noise he makes.

I would reinstall the stair gate at the bottom of the stairs.

I dont want my 2 hairy beasts upstairs and they are both 35+ Kg. My children are now 12 and 8 - we have a stairgate at the lounge door and a stairgate at the dining room door. This stops the dogs going upstairs (unless DC forget to shut the gates)

ours are not allowed upstairs and they don't even try. We used to have gate first, then took it off and just said NO whenever they tried to climb upstairs. Tell him no and take him back down each time he has crept in. yes it will take several nights, but he'll get it eventually.