16wks - surely I should be allowed to sleep now?

[OldEnglishSheepDog]

I'm honestly at the end. Pup has slept through ONCE since we got him. When he wakes for a wee it can take an hour to resettle him. Much of the time I find myself sleeping on the sofa with him on my lap.

I'm currently stood in the living room afraid to move as he will start whining the moment I do. I am on the fb page everyone recommends and am following advice.

Can't fit crate upstairs so to be with him means being downstairs. Stopped bedding down on the sofa a couple of weeks ago as it felt like I was creating an expectation.

I have woken up in my own bed once since I got him. He is taken out around 10pm and settles reasonably quickly, it's when he wakes that us the problem.

Right now, despite all the planning, I am wishing we'd never got him. I am clearly incapable of looking after him and he can't be happy to be whining this much. It's not his fault but I don't know how to fix it.

You’ll be able to tell if he’s in genuine distress. He’s just testing to see what it takes to get what he wants (cuddles!)

Yeah. He's annoyed but I don't think actually upset.

Still going.

Stay strong

You can do this! Stay strong. It's only because the behaviour has previously been rewarded with cuddles. Good luck

It's gone quiet....

Fingers crossed he'll let you sleep for a bit now then

And remember tonight is the hardest night.

.... so tomorrow night will be much easier. (Sorry posted too soon)

Well done. Just to warn you that you may have a more whiny night tomirrow ir in a few night's time however, as there is often an 'extinction burst' in a behaviour before it is abandoned. Imperative that you do not end up back on the sofa with or without a pup on top of you.

So he's awake again. I went down and let him put for a wee - he shot past me straight upstairs and I had to chase him. He did a small wee outside and is now yapping frantically in his cage again.

Fuck.

This is awful. He's really loud. And it's sounding stressed.

Right so DH declared this a disaster so I am downstairs again with pup who is now quiet but breathing like he's run a marathon.

I know you will all tell me I shouldn't have caved but he was sounding properly distressed. Fuck knows what I do now.

Try to calm down. Honestly, they are quite basic creatures who learn quickly- if you can teach them that whining and crying gets them nowhere, they'll soon stop, I promise. Earplugs!

You sound like a lovely mummy, btw. Please don't give yourself a hard time. Tomorrow is another day.

I've no advice but he's adorable!

I understand why you caved I really do as it's horrible to hear them but it's designed to make you feel like it.

The problem is every time you go and stay with him you are rewarding that behavour so when you and your DH are awake you might want to decide how you are going to manage it moving forward as you need to work together.

It's very very easy to reward the wrong behaviour and end up in a cycle. We abandoned the crate at 1 year old and moved him from the kitchen to our bedroom now he was an adult. He used to trot around the bedroom several times a night waking us all up and it transpired that DH was giving him a quick stroke when he went to him. I had to explain why he needed to pretend he was asleep and no matter what he did to not do anything. It took a few nights of us pretending to be asleep and for BiteyDog to get no reward when he went for his night time excursions round the room for it to stop.

What I am trying to explain is that when the dog is not a brand new puppy and yours isn't and you see a behaviour that you don't want I find it is almost certain that it is caused by something you are doing so when you alter your behaviour it alters there's. All you need to work on is how you and your DH are going to change your behaviour to change your dogs into the one you want.

Oh and if you don't feel strong enough to do this alone why not pay for a trainer to help you come up with a concrete plan to stick to which will give you some real life support.

OldEnglishSheepDog It sounds like you've had a really tough time of it!

It might be worth you (and dh) reading up on the extinction burst. It is basically a way of describing how any animal will try extra hard to repeat a behaviour that previously worked once it stops working.

I think of it like humans with a keyboard. I press the key and a letter appears on the screen. The press is the behaviour and the letter on the screen is my reward. I do that happily for weeks and it works every time. Then, one day, I press a button and the letter does NOT appear. I don't believe it so I press the letter again. Nothing happens. What's the next thing I do? Do I give up this easily? Probably not. Probably what I start doing is pressing the key harder and harder trying to get it to work again.

This is what your pup is doing. The crying no longer worked like normal last night so he started pressing the button harder and harder.

Now, the good news is that once it becomes clear the button no longer works, humans (and dogs) tend to give up trying pretty suddenly and quickly. But you have to go through that burst of trying harder first.

Bitey's advice about developing a plan and sticking to it is rock solid. If you cannot stomach a night of crying (and I totally understand that) then the plan needs to be something you and the dh CAN face.

Could you sleep downstairs with him for a night, still ignoring any crying (apart from maybe a gruff, "that'll do") and slowly move yourself back to your own bed in stages, over a number of nights?

Could the pup sleep in his crate in your room and then slowly move the crate away from you over series of nights?

Could you practise settling in the crate during the day, using a cue that it is time to settle? I've known people use a sign on the fridge "don't fuss the dog!" that acts as a reminder to the humans and a visual cue to the dog that nothing exciting will happen while the sign is there. We use classic fm - if the radio is playing the dogs here know it is time to settle down because no human is going to do anything fun.

Now he will often try to skip past me as I close the door; he'll have a quick wander round and then go back of his own accord. I think he just likes to do things on his own terms! - that's the problem though, it's on his terms and it needs to be on yours. That's why a lead on at night might be better for that last wee, because then you control him going straight back into his crate, rather than him being in control of it and messing about.

Personally I think that at 16 weeks he should be capable of going through (much of) the night without having a wee. You said that he just does a small wee when you take him out, so he obviously doesn't have a full bladder. No need to be going down 2 hourly. Get yourself and everyone else in the house some good earplugs and use them tonight. If you have adjoining neighbours then let them know if it makes you feel better. Then go to bed and let him whine or howl. He needs to do that to get over it, and he will get over it.

Agh I was hoping for good news sorry it didn't work our last night. I know what that distressing cry sounds like my monster is doing that when he goes into his crate when I put DS to bed. It's hard to work through. I sit on the stairs until he stops however briefly and then get him so he knows I am not answering to crying. I don't think it's working mind you he still whines. Just think it like this. He isn't in pain he isn't sick and he probably doesn't need the toilet. What's the worst that can happen if you have a couple of nights of whaling? He might stop altogether and he won't even remember. Good luck, puppies, why does anyone get them!

I feel for you so much oldenglishsheepdog, so sorry it didn't work last night :(
For me sleepless nights are the worst and turns me into a monster to be honest so I don't know how you managing. Are you able to have a nap during the day?
Hope it gets better for you soon

Thank you all so much. In many ways this is making me feel better. Last night I failed on every level but I think I'm starting to get why I did.

The difficulty is that this impacts on DH but he's not terribly involved so I'm making decisions at least partly to avoid disturbing him and he has nothing to say about it except when it doesn't work!

We've lacked a clear routine I think and I have not been consistent with the crate so he's not clear on expectations anyway. So, today is a new day. This morning I took him out for a wee, let him have a quick run about then crated him while we had showers and got dressed. Then we went for a walk, I brought him home and left him in the living room while I went for a run. I came home, made a bit of a fuss of him, took him outside for a brief period of play then crated him while I went for a shower. Basically, if I'm going upstairs, he's going in the crate.

I am going to make it a bit more attractive this afternoon so I will fill up a kong for his lunch and give that to him in the crate too. I was thinking that I should be rewarding him for the good behaviour so maybe throwing in a treat if I walk past and he is laying or sitting quietly?

I'm going to get the earplugs - he has got pretty good bladder control except if he's panicking and if he does wee in his crate, it's a reasonable size so he doesn't have to sleep in it.

He doesn't have water in his crate - that's ok for overnight isn't it? I won't be crating him when I'm out so he can have drinks then.

As plans go, how does that sound?

@BiteyShark and @Missbattenburg - you have both given me lots of good advice and it's very much appreciated. Thank you.

@newme175 In some ways I'm really pleased that DH had a broken night's sleep last night as I have been going steadily more Taxi Driver over the last couple of weeks! And I'm getting increasingly irritated with him as he really isn't being very much help - he did let me go for a nap at the weekend which was nice. It's difficult though - he's only seeing the bad side of this at the moment so I'm loathed to involve him too much in this as he'll end up hating the puppy.

BTW, obviously I'm moaning a lot, and in the early hours of the morning I am questioning why the hell we did this but pup did redeem himself this morning by running around beautifully with my DS who loves him to pieces. Somehow DS swears that he is sleeping through all the noise which is bonus anyway.

He'll be fine without water in his crate. Lots of people recommend withholding food and water for 2 - 3 hours before bedtime too.

Oh really @AgathaF? I was thinking that he might be waking up hungry? Is the idea just to make sure they don't want to wee or poo? When I have been letting him out of the crate he often runs for his water bowl and drinks loads (while I stand over him, watching him fill his bladder up and trying not to curse him!)

Both DH and I regretted getting BiteyDog when he was a puppy. It was my idea and although DH wanted a dog in his head he would never have actually gone ahead had I not pressed for one. He often said to me when it was rough if I changed my mind he would support me but obviously I knew hoped things would change for the better when he got older.

And they did . I can tell you now DH loves him to bits and keeps telling me how he was the best thing I ever got him and how he has no idea how he will cope without him (we felt like we almost lost him recently when he had to have emergency surgery when he ate a rag which got stuck in his intestines).

So whilst I know your DH isn't quite onboard right now neither was mine but it soon changed when the dog settled down and we got a good routine and he wasn't this bitey, pooling demanding puppy anymore.