Hi everyone.  I posted a thread here on 28th Feb called "Puppy barking at night time" - last post was on 3.3.06 on page 4 of this forum.  I got some really helpful advice from several of you.  Perhaps you could take a look at that thread for background.  We did what onetwothree advised and moved our puppy back into our bedroom in her crate for a week, and then moved the crate out to the landing and then finally downstairs to the kitchen (so she is now in the same room as our other dog).  All was basically going well - she can get through the night and doesn't need to pee until about 7am, but she was still waking very early and barking to be let out of her crate.  So...three nights ago we decided to leave her crate door open so she was free to wander out when she wanted.  For the first two nights this worked fine.  She didn't sleep in her crate - she chose to sleep nearer our other dog.  We heard the odd bit of activity but nothing much and they were both quiet until we came down at 7am - marvellous!  Last night something went horribly wrong.  From the moment we went to bed Lucy kept throwing herself at the door trying to get to us, barking and crying.  She kept this up until 3am when, for fear of her hurting herself and in a state of exhaustion, we locked her back into her crate.  She still barked frantically for another hour or so and then she must have fallen asleep (or our earplugs cut out the noise eventually!).  We have no idea what caused this (it was nothing to do with needing to toilet) and we are at a loss for what to do tonight.  Do we give her another chance outside the crate and then put her back in the crate if she does the same, or shall we put her straight in her crate?  She's 20 weeks old now.  Pleeeeeease can somebody advise?

Hi Feebee

I think you should lock her in the crate again tonight and keep putting her in there every night, until she is 100% toilet trained and happy settling without you.  When she wakes and barks, ignore her, no matter how long it goes on for. 

What often happens with new owners is they wait and wait and wait while the puppy barks, and the puppy's barks get more and more intense and desperate.  If only they knew this is called the extinction burst and it means things are actually getting BETTER and soon the puppy will give up....but they don't know that, and instead when the barking gets to its peak and the worst it's been, they decide they can't let it go on anymore, and they go in to the puppy. 

What that does is that it rewards the barking at its most intense, and that in turn means that the barking is likely to be intense again in future, because that's what worked for the dog.  It's kind of like training a dog to sit straighter - you don't reward all the sloppy sits, you only reward the nice straight sits in front of you.  You ignore all the sloppy sits.  Well - you are ignoring all the lesser barking and only rewarding the big, paddy barking - which means that in turn, it is likely to happen more, because what you reward will happen more.

If she was my puppy, I would also try to make sure that the older dog sleeps in another room to the puppy.  It's fine for them to sleep together if and when you've "alone trained" them to be happy on their own, but now is the time to train them to be happy alone and independent of each other.  Only when the puppy is happy sleeping away from the older dog every night for about 2 wks, would I then let them sleep together again.

Thank you onetwothree - we'll give that a go.  I must admit that a large part of our motivation for trying to let her sleep outside the crate was to try and get a bit more sleep as she wakes us up so horribly early in the morning when she is in the crate.  Until now we have gone down to her when we have heard her wake up as we thought she would need to pee, but it seems she is quite able to hold on until a reasonable hour, so maybe we should just lie there and ignore her until we want to get up?

Yes, definitely ignore her and leave her in there - you seem to be quite confident that she doesn't need a pee and you say she can hold on till 7am.

It sounds like she has trained you to get up when she wakes up!

As a rule of thumb - if you are ever worried that a puppy can't hold on and might need to go pee/poo, then you should set your alarm clock for just before they wake up, and then you get up, wake them up and take them out.  That way YOU stay in control of when waking time is and the puppy isn't training you to get up! 

So - either set your alarm for before she wakes up and take her out - don't wait for her to wake you up.  Or if you think she doesn't need to go toilet, just wait and ignore her when she wakes up.

Thanks - will put in earplugs and let war commence!

Have just found out that OH has allowed both dogs to sleep for most of today, which means they will be hyper active come the evening....marvellous!

What time do you put her to be?  My adults only go to 7am, and thye don't go to bed before 11pm-12am.  At her age I wouldn't expect her to go more than about 6 hours without a toilet break.

She tends to fall asleep by 9pm at the latest but we take her outside and settle her down sometime after 11pm.  Sounds like we are doing reasonably well getting her through to 6am in that case.  We put her back in her crate last night and she was as good as gold...until 6am when she started wimpering.  Obviously something must have freaked her out the night when we left her outside the crate.  Trying to run before we can walk as usual......!

Roxy's body clock is still on winter hours :rolleyes:

She used to have a mad hour at about 8pm settle about 9.30pm then crate for bed around 10.30pm, up at about 7.15... Now it's madness till she goes to sleep at about 10.30 straight to her crate and was throwing the odd hopeful bark at about 6.50 this morning. :rolleyes:

Have not had that problem so take this with a grain of salt, but may be worth considering.  When our girl was a puppy we were told to put an old fashioned alarm clock that ticks and a hot water bottle, both securely wrapped up in a towel, in with her to simulate the presence of her litter mates.  Your pup is older now but it still might help.  A radio left on low on a talk station might also give her the feeling she is not alone.

Are you covering the crate with a cover? if not, try this, it makes them feel safer, I found this worked better with one of mine when it was younger, or even put in a frozen kong with not a lot of food in it, you might even find that the dog does not eat whats in the kong until the morning.  Are you sure none of your neighbours are up and about early in the morning, or is your fridge/freezer clicking on and off, its amazing what small sounds will start them off barking, remember dogs  hear things that we dont.  I k,ept mind in the bedroom until they were a lot older and just used to say shhhh!! quietly when the dog made a noise.

We have got the crate covered - although we leave a gap on one side so she can see out.  I guess certain things do make noises - the fridge for example, but not always at the same time and they're not noises we can do anything about. We're lucky enough to be far enough away from neighbours so we can't hear them and they can't hear us!  More often than not she's OK overnight until about 6am, but we had another bad night with her last night when she barked from about 3am until about 4.30.  We ignored her (but felt really bad about it), but have no idea what caused it.  Haven't tried the frozen kong.....isn't there a risk it melts overnight and makes a mess in the bed?

You have had lots of good advice and crate training has as many schools of thought attached to it as strong opinions! ;-)

I did write this on another thread a week or two ago, but whilst some take the softly softly approach with crating, breaking themin slowly, moving the crate about, putting it in the bedroom etc this is not the mewthod I have used and my puppy folks have used. The person that asked for advice in the previous thread decided to use this method and had great success with it as far as we kept contact too...

I take the bull by the horns, especially in what is now a dog who is basically familiar with your home and the crate. From day one, at night time the dog goes in the crate with the door shut. They have soft bedding and a cover over the crate to make it a 'den'. It is in the place you wish them to remain for good, such as the utility room, the kitchen or wherever and is not moved about. I have heardmany who start with the door open, move the crate to the bedroom, sleep beside it and so on and it works, in time, it works. But in the meantime, yes the dog is possibly slightly more initally at ease, but then at some point you change the rules and a lot of what has been learnt is forgotten in the change and needs reteaching. If you start where and as you mean to go on you negate this problem.

Its a little old school but it works very well and is not unkind. Obviously as puppies, or dog that need reschooling they bark. They shout to come out and for attention. However one collects from the kitchen everything one needs. Glasses of water, books etc. A radio is left on reasonably loudly for company. Lights are out and yes, you lose often a whole nights sleep the first night. But if you STICK to it, its just a while the second night. A few minutes the third and often silence or near silence the fourth!

A few months later you can of course vary crating and leaving the door open, but it needs engraining that they are in and they are staying in till you let them out (make no fuss when you do).

For 8 week - 4 or so month old puppies I let them out at 3am once and then back in again after a quick wee and a poo. Then they stay in again till morning.

Just another take on crating. Be firm and don't confuse them by changes of routine and environment. Get something and stick to it.
Good luck!
Di