Hiya!

I've had my 10wk old male GSP for a week now..a week of very little sleep!  Not that i'm surprised, he's a baby after all and we were expecting it, but we're a little confused as to what to do having been given and read lots of conflicting information.  At present he sleeps in the kitchen (or doesn't as the case may be ) and we have been leaving him all night on vet's recommendation.  Last night, for example, he woke shortly after we went to bed and barked loudly and constantly from 11.30pm until 3.30am.  Then started again at 5.30am, at which point i got up to let him out etc.  Understandably he has relieved both his bowels and bladder during this time. 

My problem is..should we let him out during the night, i did this the first few nights, but as he barks all the time when he sees we're not there, it's hard to distinguish when he needs to go out and when he's just after attention.  So don't want to reinforce to him that if he barks for ages i eventually appear, when he's not actually barking to be let out.

Also, should we bite the bullet and bring his crate upstairs with us, and hope that eventually we can wean him off us and take him downstairs, or is this a recipe for disaster?

I'm an equine dentist, and eventually he'll just be coming to work with me, but at present i'm staying with him a lot, and only leaving him during the day for a few hours at a time.  But he's really really needy when i'm there, is happy to play outside on his own but if i go upstairs or anything he will cry at the bottom until i reappear or just hunt for me, barking.  And occasionally wets himself too as he gets worked up.

Any tips/help would be greatly appreciated.  I'm sure when he's allowed out properly next week he'll be more tired, but i tire him out all day, don't let him sleep in the evening etc but to no avail..he won't settle at night.

Thanks, I look forward to your replies (i'm based in the UK)

C

 ETA sorry for the size of the photo, didn't realise it would come out so big!

Thanks for the reply.  I had a bit of a browse of the forum before I joined and read about what happened to Leena, I'm so sorry for your loss.

He is on a schedule, was on 4 feeds a day but now on 3, last feed at 7pm and always goes to the toilet before we all go to bed (approx 11pm) And I now take his water away overnight, when it was left he'd only chuck it everywhere anyway.  I think our next step will be to bring him upstairs as I really feel bad for the neighbours, plus the lack of sleep for us is a killer!

I guess we'll just have to persevere until we find something that works for all of us.  If he's upstairs, is it relatively easy to then get them to eventually sleep downstairs again, or is it just postponing the inevitable?

We had Bo's crate in a spare bedroom upstairs from 8 to 10 weeks (he was getting too heavy to carry down the stairs for his midnight pees, and too clumsy to use the stairs!). After two weeks we moved his crate down to the kitchen. Fortunately, after night 1 he only cried when he had to go out (and my husband is a light sleeper). Bring him upstairs and see if that helps. Also, covering his crate, making it more den-like, might also help. We know have both of our dogs in their crates during the night in the basement (2 flights down).

We found that for the first, hmm... 2 to 3 weeks? ... he definitely needed a middle of the night pee. Now he has the bladder of an elephant and could probably hold it three days if necessary  The only time he has cried in the middle of the night since then, was because he was sick. (He is now 2.5 years old.)

Welcome to the forum ... your little fellow is awfully cute and we are all addicted to puppy pictures here

He is adorable!

I had sort of your same questions when we got ours at 8 weeks old (now 112 weeks). I had never crate trained before I always let my pup sleep in bed with me (I wasn't married then) so I had tons of questions. My husband works night shift and we put our cage in our bedroom cuz the rest of the house had no room and when my husband comes home in the middle of the night he turns lights on in the kitchen so he can make snack, so we figured our bedroom was best...except my husband also turns on his small bedside light too.

I didn't have the barking or whining trouble you have though, luckily mine didn't do that. However he would wake up and do a small whine to be let out and he would go both potty and poops and he was asking about every 2 hours. I asked for help on the forums and the covering the cage was suggested and that helped for when my husband came home and turned his light. I also started monitoring his food cuz I had been keeping his dish down and making sure it always had food. At first I did a morning serving and then a dinner serving, but I found dinner at 4pm and no later worked best. However a biggie that helped was I knew something was wrong when he was still going poop like a mad man so I took him to the vet and he had worms (I don't think yours is going enough for this to be his problem). Oh yeah someone also mentioned when you do feed you only leave their bowl down for 30-60 min and what they don't eat in that time they wait till next feeding...they soon learn to finish their food in that time.

Our bedtime changes quite a bit but I try to put Blitz to bed around 9:30pm, however some nights he crashed at 7:30pm or 8:30pm but he will be sleeping on his pillow in the living room then so I have to wake him up (sometimes carry him out) to go potty and then kennel/cage. He now sleeps till 6:30am which is when the alarm goes off! Except even on weekends when there is no alarm he gets up about then too!

Welcome and congrats...I know you will get tons of help here just like I did!

Also I love that your are an equine dentist, I have a friend that does that!  I am on an equstrian stunt riding drill team and love horses!

My sister doesn't have GSP's but her dogs both have their own cages side by side and they sleep in them in the utility room which is by the back door.

I also want to add to my post above that I did the same thing you did with your robe...The day before I brought our pup home I wore a tshirt and then slept in it, then I put it in the cage so he had my scent to sleep with at night.

Our pup was mostly sleeping through the night by 12 weeks, with occasional nightly outings gradually decreasing in frequency.  He did fine in a crate in our bedroom where he could see me, and close enough that I could see/hear him if he got up and was restless.  I let that restlessness be the cue to take him out, rather than escalating into whining (obviously no playtime, affection or other distractions during midnight excursions).  Not so different, I think, than what others have recommended....but one other thing: you mention not letting him sleep in the evening.  My own experience has been that if pups don't get enough sleep, like kids they can get "wired" and not sleep well through the night.  Unless we have other dogs over, Buddy has always slept from about 19:30 to 07:30, with a pee break as we move him from couch to bedroom when we go to bed. 

I haven't ever moved him out of the bedroom - personally I like having him right there so that I know what he's up to, and I can easily hear him if he's alerting to something important (say, a tree on fire outside...no joke!).

Cute pup!  Whatever you decide to do, be assured it will get easier soon as he gets a little older.

Our pup slept in her crate in our bedroom from 8 weeks until about 12 weeks.  We took her out to potty about every 4 hours...10pm, 2am, and 6am.

At 12 weeks we moved the crate into the living room where it is now (she is 11 months old).

As others have suggested, putting something in the crate can definitely help them adjust...it will also take up room inside of the crate which helps with house training.  We bought two stuffed animals and put them inside.  They are (even now) her best friends and play toys.

Wow thanks for all the responses and advice guys, that's great!

I think the general consensus seems to be bring Rupert up to bed in his crate (we do have a crate, but he hates it and sleeps in his bed in the kitchen, i think because he associates it with being in the car which he also hates, i've bought an utter wimp evidently!) so i'll give that a go tonight and let you know how i get on.

I have tried leaving him with a t shirt i've slept in but it didn't make any difference unfortunately.  Have also tried leaving the radio on, the tv on, big cuddly toy and he came with a piece of blanket his littermates had been sleeping in. 

I went out for 4 hrs this afternoon and he was barking when i left, and when i got home..i hope he didn't do it for the full 4 hrs but it wouldn't surprise me.  I'm just going to have to hope he eventually gets used to it.

Here are a few more pics of the little menace..butter wouldn't melt eh.

Will his eyes turn brown, or is this the colour they'll stay?

He's cute! Does he have a name?

Re crate, he may have been introduced to it incorrectly. There should be a few discussions here about the crate already, you may want to search for them and see which approach works for him. It's fixable, I'm sure!

I once had an American Bulldog for a few days, she was 8 weeks old and a total terror in the crate. She was soooo bad she would screech, yes, screech herself to exhaustion. I was afraid to leave her for 4 hours fearing she would die of heatstroke. One day she squeezed out of the crate I don't know how. Some dogs are extreme!

Re eyes: they should darken over time.

 

His name's Rupert, but he probably thinks his name is 'NO' !!

He will have totally been introduced to the crate wrongly, my fault, so i'll work on that over the weekend and see what happens, fingers crossed a mixture of feeling safer in the crate and being up with us in our room will lead to some sleep all round.  I don't mind getting up at 5.30am..so long as there's some shut eye in between.

Really reassuring to hear that i don't have some freak of nature though.