Hello Everyone.

Before bringing our first black lab puppy home I spent many an enjoyable hour reading the board to prepare ourselves for our new arrival. But sadly I cannot work out our problem.

Our problem is continuose distressed whining when she wakes up from sleep at night.
Her bed is in our kitchen which connects to our living room via our hall. We put her to bed after she falls asleep with us from the living room. Even from day one when she fell asleep in the day i have put her to sleep in the kitchen bed but left the two doors open so that when she wakes she can amble in to the living room at her leisure to put her outside for potty training. The potty training tips on this board certainly work, we are very pleased with her progress.

The only time really she is isolated to the kitchen bed has been the past two nights. Night before last i put her to bed at midnight, we had some whining but she went back to sleep and slept till 06-00am.
Last night, bed at 23-00pm. She woke 00-30am and was whining off and on till 02-30am wherebye the tone changed to a distressed tone and eventually I got up to see her. I did not make a fuss, just went about making a cup of chocolate. she eventually settled at 02-50am and slept til 06=10 when my wife gets up.

On average over a 24 hour period she sleeps for two hours and is then awake for one to two hours. The awake time she plays with her toys in the living room, or in the kitchen if i am there making food.
Obviously she is very traumatised by leaving the litter and is with me all the time she is not asleep.
We lost the battle for our settee on day two, so she cooches up beside us after play, falls asleep, then is moved to her kitchen bed. We eat our dinner at the living room table and she falls asleep on our feet.Must have contact.

The booklet in the puppy pack and Scamps diary say let them whine, you have to be cruel to be kind. Not when she has been going off and on for two hours and the whine is distressing.

So is she pineing for company, or is it because the kitchen door is only shut at night and she cannot get to the living room, where the sofa is which has her new familys scent. This morning the wife got up but closed the kitchen door while she went to the bathroom. The whining starts again, I get up and give her freedom wherebye 20 minutes later when i'm eating toast she falls asleep on my foot.I am writing this as she is fast asleep in the kitchen bed, content. If i stay in the living room and i don't hear her wake she will stroll in and i will put her out for potty training before play, sleep and the circle turns again. As i have come off nights onto holidays i am able to catnap in the day so am pretty much awake at night to tend to her needs, but in ten days time i will be back on the nightshift.

She is on Omega puppy junior and I was recommended by a family friend who has had a few labs to leave the food down all the time which is what I have done. She is not from the show background, her pedigree comes from the gundog world.
She has just strolled in now. Just come in from doing wees so play has started as I am writing this.

Apologies for being a bit long and drawn out but 90% of what is happening is down on print. Bye the way our little lady is a real gem with tremendous potential, very bright, alert, with a good nose. She is here to be loved and to give love, her gundog breeding might not be used but we'll see.

David.

It is a difficult one that. My first reaction would be to make the living room for sleeping less appealing. Be firm about not letting her on the sofa, and as you are doing now, if she goes to sleep put her in her bed. It may also be an idea to confine her in the kitchen for short periods during the day, say 10 minutes, and don't let her out until she has been quiet, so she doesn't think the wining gains her freedom again. Does she wine when shut in the kitchen when you go out? If you haven't left her alone at all, you should start to introduce her to short spells of being on her own, at the moment she has access to you as and when SHE chooses! This will help her when she must at some point be left.

Also do not let her make all the overtures to start games or have a fuss, call her to you for a fuss when she is doing something else, and studiously ignore her when she demands your attention, when she desists, wait a minute, and call her to you, make her do something for which you can praise her lavishly, like anice sit. she will then without any heavy handedness learn that you are in charge, and make things happen, not her. the ignoring her and making a cup of chocolate if you have had to come in to her at night should work,just so long as she really gets no attention from you. You could say take her outside, give her a command to wee, and then go back in but do not look at or acknowledge her at all, when she finally curls back up because you are boring, leave without a word, this worked with a pup I bred who had kept his owners up and down for a fortnight.

Good Luck!!! get some foundation or concealer for those circles undr the eyes :D

Thanx for the reply, actualy have started part of what you recommend, namely isolation for short time.
I agree doing this in the day, its also more considerate to my neighbours.

The setee is a low one very difficult to keep her off.
As of now I have not gone out, it's only her fifth day with us, so i thought to lessen the trauma of separation by being available.
Your references to instigate attention when i choose i am doing now already,its not a case of her doing as she likes.
Training is only short bursts currently due to her age so this is a funny one. She is also not proficent at the potty command, five days has not imprinted it yet. Basically I think I will have to apply the same as when my daughter of 21 was a baby, namely keep her awake late evening and tire her out for the night.

Been up to the garage to find the Trowel,ready for eye cosmetic application:)

The one thing that struck me from your posting is that you move the puppy into the kitchen when she is already asleep. It's possible that when pup wakes up she is confused to find herself somewhere different and away from 'mum' and 'dad'. They may well be quite distressing for her.

The advice with small babies is that they should be put into their cots AWAKE and allowed to fall asleep in their cots not in mums arms. It might work with your pup and her bed.

I don't claim to be an expert on puppies but I do know a thing or two about babies!!! I hope you get the sleep issue sorted out, we spent nearly 8mths with disturbed nights thanks to our youngest daughter and that was because we'd let her fall asleep with us and then move her into her crib.

Good luck with your pup, and have fun.

Fiona

I wonder if she finds the kitchen a big scary place when she's all on her own? Where is her bed? Can you get hold of a large cardbaord box or crate? That way she will be in a much smaller confined space and perhaps feel a little more secure (in addition to the stuff about putting her to bed awake, so she doesn't wake up to find her self on her own) My two dogs were moved into the kitchen when the cold weather started, but they now prefer to sleep in a smaller room now I've got an electric oil filled radiator to keep the chill off the air (hubby says they are spoiled brats <G>)

I always give my puppies a big teddy bear :-) You can buy them quite cheaply from the local charity shops. Watch the eye's and any bits that might come off tho' and replace them as they get tatty.
It has always worked for me... ;-)

hello david Ibelieve in reincarnation if I come back as a black lab can i come and stay in your house ,chuckling . seriously I think you are a great Dad to puppy, and with the good advice you have received and your own common sense I reckon you will have no bother mari

Kai is now twelve weeks old, so I vividly remember the sleepless nights. I'm lucky in that I don't work any longer, but that didn't make the nights less irritating. Young puppies have a shortened sleep/potty/play/eat/fall asleep again to start all over cycle. Because I wanted to hasten the housetraining, I slept with Kai through the night. Every time he whined when he awoke, I hastened him outside where he pottied. At night after he came in, I gave him a stuffed toy (the dogs have a whole toybox filled) and discouraged play by ignoring him and then giving him a soft 'good boy' when he would lay back down to sleep. The first week was horrible and I felt like I'd never get enough sleep again (since I was also catnapping during the day so that if he whined to go out, he could). By the second week, he was sleeping about four hours during the night and needed to get up once to go out. Now he sleeps through the night and, in fact, heads for the bed when he thinks we humans should be sleeping too.

And, yes, it did facilitate his housetraining since he was completely housebroken by ten weeks. Of course, having two older dogs about to show him the ropes didn't hurt either. The way I have always looked at it is that the first few weeks help shape the puppy and if it means a bit of sleeplessness for me, that's okay. The method has worked for years for me, but isn't for everyone. I will say though that Kai is extremely outgoing, fearless and people-oriented.

Good luck with your baby; it'll take some experimenting to find what will work best for you and her.

Well, our pup (a Tervueren) is now 7 months, and after some discussion we started with her in our bedroom at night, mainly because for various reasons we couldn't sleep downstairs with her.

The plus side is that we never had any whining as such, because she was with us and not scared. The downside is that she is much pushier than my previous 2 Tervs as pups and whilst they simply went to bed and slept when I did, Banya kept playing and chewing and wore us out!!!We would awake to find our hair being eaten or something, daft puppy!!!! :)

HOwever, we certainly did the right thing for us, in our situation, because after 2 weeks she was at the bottom of the stairs on her bed behind a stairgate and because by then she knew her famiy and was more confident, she settled well.

I suspect there are not any hard and fast rules as such, but as many others have remarked upon, pups are just babies and can get scared.....some are scared of the clicks a boiler may make at night for instance.

Your Lab sounds very lucky and I hope you will let us all know how things progress.

Thanks everyone for your replys.
Hope to try out some of the suggestions.
In answer to a few points: The kitchen is not intimidating, with her material bed by the radiator.
Haven't had a chance to isolate her time wise as have kept her occupied this morn to induce a longer nap this afternoon, so as to try this ploy tonight. Her nap was indeed longer.
Her sleeping upstairs will only be done as a last resort, will move her bed into the living room and sleep on the sofa prior to doing this.
Cuddly large toy hopefully arriving later tonight.

Put an infrared outside light up this morn, Bonnie was with me all the time. My patio area has been segregated by a tempoary panel and gate to limit her area for potty training. This neccessitated me walking periodically up to the garage for more tools on many occasions. When i did this she whined on my departure, even though she could see me going only 10 metres into the garage. I ignored her on my return if she was vocal and praised her if she was quiet.
So we will see what tonight brings.
After having her for only 5 days her character is very intoxicating and this far outweighs my heavy task ahead.
Keep the tips flowing as i'm down to my shortlist now.:)

Have you tried her with a warm hot water bottle? You can get ones with furry cover, or you could wrap one up well in a towel. It might fool her into thinking she's got another pup in bed with her. You could also try an old soft toy (with as few removable bits as poss) and leave an old jumper of yours or a towel you've used (so it smells of you) in the bed with her.

Also, try putting a ticking clock near her, which might remind her of her mum's heartbeat when she was in the womb. You could also leave a radio on low in the kitchen, so she's not alone in the quiet.

I agree with whoever said, don't let her fall asleep on the sofa and then move her, encourage her to fall asleep in her own bed, or she may well be waking up and feeling very disorientated.

You might also like to try giving her a few drops of rescue remedy if she seems very distressed, as it will calm her slightly and might help her settle. Once she's into the routine of sleeping in her own bed, she will settle OK.

Good luck,

K

Thanx for that Lurcherlass, hot water bottle she has had from day 1, also a towel the breeder had in with the litter from the 4th week. ai'll try the t-shirt idea also.

As i posted before I actually kept her awake late last night. into bed semi-awake at 23-15pm. She woke at 00-30am with refreshed energy. managed to put her back to bed at 01-10am and she slept until 05-40am. It's a result, so i won't raise the flags just yet.

As i mentioned before her potty training is good. I'm just wondering that the first awakening had a lot of wees on the paper by the back door and because she is praised to the gods on good potty's outside was she looking for this response from us even though she was on her own. Her's looking forward to a good one tonight.

I might add, she actually slept more than me as i was a bit on edge:) Managed to catnap with her by me this morning

For all those people who gave excellent tips many thanks.
Our little gem is giving us no more problems. It could one or two changes I don't know.
It could be the introduction of "big" cuddly toys for company.
Keeping her awake later in the evening.
She's settled in more.

Could be I went to see the neighbours, informed them of our puppy, but after last Wed night I would have expected them to know. Apparently not. Let her whine if need be , which she did but nothing on the scale of "that" night.
Anyway its a result so once again thanks.

The current problem is "play biting" but I did a search of the board and found some excellent threads on the subject, especially one link to a site that gives a lot of info.

David

It'll be the teddy David... keeps me quiet at night..lol ;-)
Glad she is ok. What did you call her ? Leigh

Hi Leigh

The breeder called her a shortened version of her registered KC name, that being "Bonnie". Which she certainly is. We decided to keep it.
Kind regards
David

Hi I've only just read your posting in regards to your pup.I'm glad u seemed to have solved your problem now Like someone has already mentioned I always find a hot water bottle is a good tip(furry cover if possible) another useful item for anyone who may be interested is a clock(wind up type) the ticking reminds them of their mothers heartbeat and they get comfort from that.Iwrap mine in an old pillowcase and place it in the bed with the pup.Hey presto hardly any whining Well its always worked for me anyway .Kia is 14 weeks now and had both in bed with her for 2 weeks she only whined 3 nights and then only for short periods I then weaned her off in the day and the at night.Hope this info is a help to someone.
lorraine