Wouild like some second opinons please. The last few days Brooke who is now almost 6months old has decided that she wants to sleep upstairs with me and Whispa and not in her crate in the kitchen. Now I have no problem with dogs up satiar obviously but my problem is that although she wakes me up to go out when necessary (usually about 7.00) I am far from convinced she would bother if she had the extra space of the upstairs of the house.
However she is now worse than when she first arrived taking 1hr+ to settle then waking 2 or 3 times just really to play.
Yes I have tried ignoring her but, at 3 in the morning, until I have let her out it is impossible to know why she has woken.
. I think this is my fault really as when she wakes in the morning  I bring her upstairs after a wee and she goes back to sleep until I am ready to get up but that is only an hour or two
I cant have the crate upstairs as its too big which was my other thought
Thank you

I'm interested to see the replies to this as I am having a similar trouble with Nando. He settles at night and won't cry or bark as soon as he goes in his crate. However, the past two nights he has woken at 3am/4am/5am/6am and I'm never sure what he is actually waking me for when he is barking. I can usually distinguish between his 'wanting to pee' bark and his 'just boredom' bark but it is proving difficult to wait for him to be silent in order to let him out of his crate because I don't want to miss him peeing. It's nice to know others are experiencing similar things!

mmmm :) I really cant remember having this problem with the others

> I think this is my fault really as when she wakes in the morning; I bring her upstairs after a wee and she goes back to sleep until I am ready to get up

Hmm that does sound like it was the cause - she's had a taste of the good life and decided to exploit your good nature!!  Are there other dogs downstairs with her? 

If she's not on her own down there, and if it were me I'd harden my heart and leave her downstairs.  For a few weeks I'd just get up up earlier with her then try to lengthen the period of time so that she sleeps longer in the morning. 

My dogs have slept upstairs in a crate whilst tiny puppies but as soon as I think I've learnt their routines/noises etc I put them back downstairs with regular trips into the garden based on their bladder capacity.  They've never been allowed back upstairs. I did however go and sleep on the sofa with one of them as he wouldn't go back in his crate after 6am without really yelling and waking my daughter up which I thought was a bit unfair on her.  This period lasted a month or so I think...

I should add that my youngest dog is a sleeper and just learnt to settle at night really quickly, he also started to lie in quite soon after going the full night - a big contrast to my middle dog (above).  I do think that some of this is just hard wired in and to some extent it differs with each dog - like people - some do late nights and others do early mornings!!

She has got little one in seeing distance from her in the kitchen but mia has her crate open and ignores brooke definitely a lie er in dog is mia brookes crate is shut  t I wouldn't have iit so she could accidentally hurt mia. Maybe I shall have to get tough or up earlier ! She is a dog who loves coimoany but then she is a fcr. Bother I thought we had sorted the nights