Let sleeping dogs sleep ( I wish he would let me ) LOL

Hello to all of my Staffy Friends, Can anybody offer me some help and advice ???

As most of you who read my last post ( 7 week old puppy, is he safe to go out in our back garden ) will know we are now the very happy owners of Nero a 7 week old puppy, he is a great little boy and lots of fun, Like most babies/puppy’s when he is awake he loves to play, eat, pee & poo LOL. Toilet training is going very well considering it’s only his 5th day in the house he is managing to hit the paper 8 out of 10 times so I am very Good morning to all of my new Staffy owner friends. I could do with a little bit of happy with his progress.

Ok so now here is the problem that I could do with any help or advice. He has free run of the kitchen & we have a baby gate up between the door to the hallway & kitchen, when he is a sleep it’s great as he is nice and quiet and I can have a bit of a rest, But when he wakes he cries & cries until somebody goes to him, I have tried to leave it for as long as possible until I go to him, as soon as you go to him he is happy, if you leave him alone in the room when awake he once again cry and bark until somebody goes into the room, during the day this is ok but its night time when it gets a bit mad.

Do any of my staffy friends have any ideas on how to keep him calm when alone in the kitchen at night, Once we have got him to sleep usually sometime around midnight we go to bed ourselves, he will sleep for about 2 hours then wake and begin to cry and bark, I have tried to ignore him with the hope he will just go back to sleep but this never happens, my wife works all day and needs her rest at night, also I think about my neighbours being disturbed by Nero barking at 2am then almost every 2 hours, So far I have tried leaving a pair of my socks with him at night as they have my scent on them This idea was given to me by another dog owner but this hasn’t worked, Today I am wearing an old T-shirt and will place this on his bed tonight with the hope that my scent that will be on the T-shirt will hopefully reassure him so he will sleep through the night….

So once again I ask for and advise or ideas from all the wonderful people here on this great site.

CHEERS

Neil & Nero

Leaving an object with your scent on him will be of comfort and you should do the same with your OH as well. A radio or TV left on at a low volume will also help. Have you started to crate train him?

To be honest you have a decsion to make. You can either let him sleep with you or you have to ignore his behaviour. He will whine or bark to seek attention. Every time you go to him you are confirming that whineing and barking will eventually lead to you coming to comfort him.

We got Suki at about 4 1/2 months of age and crate trained her. She howled for the first couple of nights and we just ignored it. After a week or so we let her sleep with us because she had control of her bladder and that was what we had intended to do.

As J says its your choice , we made the same kind of mistakes with Tommy and then said enough is enough. Certainly I would crate train to keep control of the situation. It took 1 1/2 to 2 weeks before Tommy started to settle.
Set an alarm in the early stages so you get up and let him out (maybe 2-3 hours) in your time not his, put him out for the toilet and then put him back and leave him. This way he will soon learn a) you don't pander to him when he cries and b) he goes out on your terms not his

Hi Jstaff, we intend to have him sleep on his bed in our room at night, he is only having his 1st injections on monday 27th so i have been avised not to let him outside untill he has his injection, once he has his injection i will be able to do more regarding toilet training and his bladder control, i havn't started crate training yet due to not having a crate at this time, i will however be able to buy one at the weekend once i have been paid, we should have only picked Nero up on Sunday 26th, but the lady who sold him to us asked if we could pick him up 1 week early as all of the 9 pups were taking there toll on the mother and she was loseing far to much weight, so the money i had put to one side for the crate went when i paid for Nero, I will defanatly take your advise and put a radio on for him tonight, i just hope he likes the station that we choose LOL

Hi Dave Thankyou for your advise, i am taking it all in and i am going to try everything that i can
Cheers
Neil

We got Benson at 8 weeks old after his first jab, he is now 11 weeks old.

Since the day we got him we let him out in the garden to go toilet as only wanted him to learn to go outside which worked for us and his very good at it since day 1.

He cried a couple of nights...... All we did was as soon as we heard him cry we went downstairs to the kitchen and let him go outside to go toilet, he come back in, put him to bed and would sit there for 5-10 mins till he was a sleep then went back to bed. (Some people may say it was wrong for us to do this and to leave him to cry) but it worked for us and he only cried to go out for a wee. He now sleeps from 10pm to 7am ish . Also a radio helped alot we always leave it on for him day and night when alone.

All dogs are diff so it may not work for you but we didnt give in and let him in our room.

Hi zoe, at the moment i dont want to risk letting him out untill his injection, I do sit with him for about 10 mins untill he falls back to sleep then i go back to bed myself, as soon as i can let him out i will be able to do as you have said and let him out

Cheers
Neil

Good luck hope it works for you aswell

Finally Benson can go out for walks this friday been a long few weeks lol

Zoe, you have loads of fun, and i know that myself & Nero will do the same when the time comes