The first time
most people find a new puppy's noise bothersome is when they confine
the pup at night in a crate, exercise pen, or small room with a baby
gate across the doorway. It's natural for a pup alone to call out for
someone to come. Suddenly leaving the security of the mother and
littermates, coming to a new household and then being left totally
alone at night in the dark can be very frightening for a new puppy,
especially if the breeder has not taken the time to get each puppy used
to being alone before they go on to their new homes. Pups left
alone in the wild would not survive! The puppy is following instinct.
If you
have a new puppy, you're not going to get a solid 8 hours sleep for a
while. If you accept that fact, it'll be easier to do the necessary
training to teach your puppy to sleep through the night. Most
puppies aren't able to sleep through the night when they first come
home to their new owners, but almost all puppies sleep through the
night by the time they're 16 weeks old. With proper training and
scheduling, you should be able to teach your puppy to do it even
earlier.
What you do with
your puppy in the evening will have a big impact on how well he'll
sleep (and how well YOU'LL sleep) at night. Puppies sleep a lot, so
he'll probably try to snooze for much of the evening. If you allow this
to happen, of course, he'll wake up refreshed and ready to rock and
roll at bedtime or in the middle of the night. Don't let your puppy
sleep too much in the evening... run around in the yard with him, play
with him, have your friends come over to visit him and keep him busy.
We want him to be good and tired by the time bedtime rolls
around. Be sure to give your puppy a few chances to empty out his
bladder during the evening and make sure the very last thing you do
before going to bed is take him out to the garden, even if he's asleep
and you have to wake him to do it.
The first
thing you need to know about helping your new puppy learn to remain
quiet in confinement is NOT to go to the puppy in response to noise. If
noise does not work, the puppy will eventually give up that method of
communication.
If you
have responded to the noise by going to the puppy, you have now
reinforced this instinct. The process of conditioning your puppy to
relax and remain quiet in confinement is going to take longer. You will
need extra patience. Remember, this is not your puppy's fault, and
getting mad at the puppy will not help. Be consistent about going to
the pup ONLY when the pup is quiet.
In
particular, do not wait and wait while the puppy makes more and more
noise, and then you finally go to the puppy. By doing this, you would
teach your puppy to be especially PERSISTENT about making noise! If you
have done this already, remember you are going to have to be very
patient indeed to give your puppy time to unlearn this unfortunate
reinforcement. If you stop reinforcing a behaviour, eventually it
will fade. But the more strongly it has been reinforced before you stop
reinforcing it, the longer it will take to fade.
Punishment
will NOT speed your puppy's learning to be quiet, any more than it
would help your human infant learn not to cry. Punishment will greatly
increase stress on the puppy, create more behaviour problems, and
seriously damage the relationship between you and your dog.
You can
help your puppy accept confinement more quickly by introducing the
confinement area gently, giving the pup treats while in the confined
area (crate, dog bed). Putting one of your smelly old ‘T’ shirts in the
crate with your pup so he has the comfort of your smell around him and
leaving some chew toys with him will help to make his night times more
bearable. Choose his favourite chew toy to leave with him and
only give it to him at night time so that he isn’t bored with it so
quickly.
If your
puppy is particularly sensitive, prolonged periods of being alone may
cause separation problems later in life. In this case it is wise
to take the puppy up to the bedroom for the first few weeks, confined
to a high sided box or dog crate so that he can be with you, but not
too close. Then when the puppy is used to the house, used to
being parted from its mother and littermates, and has got used to being
alone for short periods of time, it can go down to the kitchen at night
times. This method is less traumatic for the puppy as it helps
the pup get used to the confinement without at the same time having to
deal with being alone. It also has the added advantage that you
are able to get up and take the puppy out when he wakes up in the
middle of the night for toileting.
Overnight
toileting trips are a little different from toileting trips during the
day. During the day, you play with your puppy and fuss over him after
he relieves himself. If you do that at night, you'll have big problems,
since your puppy will start waking you up just to have a party!
Overnight toileting trips are strictly business. Take him
directly to the garden and give him a couple of minutes to go. When he
goes, calmly tell him he's good, take him back inside, put him in his
crate and go back to bed. Some dogs, especially young puppies,
are so sleepy when you take them out that they just lay down and try to
go back to sleep. This doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't need to go
to the toilet... he's just so sleepy he hasn't noticed yet that he
needs to go. If your puppy does this, you should encourage him to move
around a bit. You can pick him up and put him back on his feet if you
need to... whatever it takes to get him to wake up and get down to
business.
When you're up
with your puppy in the middle of the night, you shouldn't talk much to
him, and you shouldn't play with him, take him for a long, fun walk or
give him treats, food, water or a chew bone. If he gets to do cool
stuff when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he'll start waking
you because he wants some attention or a midnight snack. We want him to
learn that night time is for sleeping and nothing fun happens when he
wakes up in the middle of the night.
Anticipating and
preparing for your puppy’s need to go to the toilet in the middle of
the night is the key to training him to sleep though the night as
quickly as possible. Most puppy owners just go to sleep in the middle
of the night with their fingers crossed, hoping little puppy will be
okay until morning. Not a good plan. He'll likely either have an
accident in his crate or start barking and crying in the middle of the
night to go to the toilet. When he starts barking, his half-asleep,
groggy owner stumbles around in the dark, looking for his slippers and
MAYBE gets his puppy out for a toilet trip before it's too late.
Aside from the
obvious problems with that plan, there's the really big problem... that
your puppy learns he can wake you up by yipping and yowling. Once he
learns he has control of whether and when you sleep or wake up, he'll
likely wake you up earlier and more often. When you plan his night time
schedule properly and in advance, you'll be taking control and you'll
be able to make wake-up times later and less frequent. A much
better plan.
The way to take
control of overnight toileting times is to set your alarm to wake you
up in the middle the night, whether little puppy wakes up or not. We
want to beat him to the punch... waking him before he's so
uncomfortable that he wakes up and starts to fuss. This way, he never
gets into the habit of making noise to wake you.
At first, you'll
probably need to set your alarm to go off a few times at night,
depending on your puppy's age at the time you're starting his program.
If you start him when he's 7-9 weeks old, it'll probably need to be
every 2 hours, from 9-14 weeks every 3 hours, 14 weeks and up, every 4
hours. These are general guidelines, of course, and you may find that
your puppy needs to go out more or less frequently.
If you've
already been through a few hellish nights with your puppy, you probably
have some idea how long he can hold it, so you can base your scheduling
on that. If your puppy has been waking up screaming every 4 hours, wake
him up every 3 or 3 1/2 hours. The goal is just to catch him before his
need to go becomes so critical that he starts barking and howling.
Once you've got
your puppy on a schedule of waking up at intervals during the night,
you're going to start to push it so he sleeps longer. This is where the
program starts to pay off... since you've taken control of the night
time schedule, you can adjust the wake up times and work toward the
holy grail of puppy training... sleeping through the night.
Once
you've been able to wake your puppy up and take him out to the garden
on schedule with no barking, howling or accidents in the middle of the
night for three consecutive nights, you can move on. What you're going
to do now is set your alarm for 15 minutes later for each toilet trip.
So, if you've been waking puppy up at 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30, you'll now
start waking him at 1:45, 3:45 and 5:45. After another three good
nights, you'll move all 3 toilet trips ahead by 15 minutes again.
Keep
moving the toilet trips ahead until the last toilet trip coincides with
your wake up time. Congratulations... you're now down to two toilet
trips instead of three! And if you keep pushing ahead by 15 minutes at
a time, you'll soon be down to one, then NONE!
Good Luck!
The above information is simply
informational. It's intent is not to replace the advice of a
veterinarian nor to assist
you in making a diagnosis of your pet. Please consult with your own
veterinarian for confirmation of any diagnosis. Your pets life may
depend on it.
