Dog keeps waking in the night for toilet!

[Aria20]

Argh for the couple of weeks my nearly 4yo dog has started waking at some point between 2-4am to go out for a wee and poo! The first night I was so surprised to hear her bark in the middle of night and she wouldn't resettle so I let her out thinking she must need to go and sure enough she did and I though ok it's a one off but clearly not! She has not done this before - she has generally slept through the night since before she was 1.

She is usually a lazy dog, she sleeps in with teen son, so wakes on school days around 6.15 but weekends she won't get up until 8.30ish!

Why does she suddenly keep barking to go out in the night? It's like she's made a new pattern and I want it to stop!! Her food hasn't changed - her poos are still firm/normal so it's not an upset tummy. She normally goes for last wee at around 9.30pm and sometimes if it's raining she won't even go out and has always held it all night without issue - until now!

Her area of garden for toileting is not exciting and is fenced off from rest of garden so it's not like she's trying to get out to play either and I'm not encouraging or engaging with her just let her out and straight back to bed but it is driving me mad!

So wise dog experts any ideas why she has started doing this and any suggestions for how to stop her?!

did she wake up cold?
mine went through the same
i weaned her off it
hope you can too

@WillowTit could be cold but she has the option to jump in the bed with my son and he says she often does in the night. Who knows. Maybe it's a fox outside but she doesn't bark when she goes out - just toilets!

If your dog is anything like mine and hates this weather then she's probably not going to the toilet when you let her out before bed.

Mine will try it on sometimes, she goes out and will come straight back in without doing anything because she hates cold wet weather. I just pop her on lead for a night or two and stand on the garden with her and she will go. She seems to understand she's not going to get away with being lazy and then I won't have a problem for a while and then she will randomly start doing it again if we have terrible weather. 🙄

Also try giving her an extra blanket because she's probably waking because she's cold. My dog sleeps on/in my bed and she's been a bit fidgety while it's been really cold.

@BeansOnToast32 oh yes she's been known to try it on so I do have to watch to make sure she does the last wee - and if it's raining like you I have to take her out on lead or she won't go out! I will give an extra blanket tonight too and see if that helps.

Thanks all!

No change to her routine, weather or food. Just seems something she does occasionally. She's 5 now and we roll with it. Happens maybe once a year for a few days!

So I took her for a 40 min walk last night and was about to give up as she hadn't been - she finally went for a poo as we approached home. But she still woke up at 3.30!!! This time as I knew there was a storm and she wouldn't want to go out anyway I just put her back in bed and covered her back up and said shhh. I felt mean as she did make a little whimper noise but she went back to sleep until 7.30 so she clearly wasn't desperate and it's become a habit. Hopefully I can break the habit!

We get phases like this with our 6 year old border collie. I think because we now have the heating on in the evening, he drinks more water as he’s hot, so needs to go out during the night, this then seems to continue for a few days in a row. Thankfully DH gets up with him and he’s pretty quick when he goes out. No other changes here, eating and walking is the same as always. We know his different barks, so know an urgent bark, otherwise we tell him to go back to sleep. There’s nothing worse than getting out of a warm bed to let your dog out in the cold, but in the morning we do give him praise for letting us know, as we’ve never had an accident in the house in all of his 6 years, apart from puppy training.