Night time woes....

[beanbag]

Hi everyone,

I havent posted in ages but i have been lurking
I have a question about Bonnie. She is coming up to 6 months old and she sleeps downstairs in the kitchen. She doesnt use a crate.
She settles off to sleep fine when we go to bed at about 22:30 - 23:00. All is fine until about 4 - 5 am when she is barking and howling. My husband goes down and lets her out but once back in she will not go back to sleep and if we leave her downstairs she is ok for 10 minutes and then starts barking again. We have ignored her, let her out again, had her come upstairs with us - which is worse as she doesnt sleep and just jumps on and off the bed and now we have taken to just getting up which again obviously isnt good - we have only done this twice but i dont want her to get into the habit.

I would leave her to just bark because she needs to know, but im in a relatively new semidetached house and i dont know how much they can hear.

Any ideas?

[j77adl]

Hello there,

Our pup (coming up for 12 weeks) has started to do this the past 2 mornings as well.  He usually lets out a little quiet-ish cry just before 6am for his toilet break so we let him out into the garden and then put him back in his pen so we can get showered / dressed or go back to bed for half an hour, then we'll go back to him and give him breakfast.  Unfortunately the past 2 mornings this hasn't worked and instead he's been whining, barking, howling the whole shebang.  I'd heard that leaving them was the best thing to do as acknowledging them only makes them think they've succeeded in getting your attention.  I have to say this morning I was getting wound up after 25 mins of this racket and so stomped down the stairs and told Murphy very firmly and loudly to BE QUIET!   and stomped back upstairs and that was it....silence!  Whether this same approach will work tomorrow morning or whether the poor wee mite was stunned by my hollering who knows, but I'd love to hear what others suggest to you as I think I was just lucky this morning and the racket will re-commence tomorrow.

Good Luck 

[beanbag]

Oh bless ya! Bonnies is wonderful but its really getting me down. Its only the past couple of days she's done it. The problem is if i tell her off she finds it HILARIOUS!!!! To the point where she thinks im playing a game and im in tears!

[j77adl]

They're little bissums at time.  I'm sure they know which buttons to press in order to get a reaction 

[Macette]

When we first got Lexi home I was expecting a few nights of screaming but we got 10 nights, I thought it was never going to end... But I persisted and did not go down. It did stop... Well now When I get a whimper at 5 in the morning I don't go down...I don't mind getting up at 6.30 but 5 is pushing it lol. So I wait till she is quiet before I get up. I'm not so worried about getting up for her to toilet, she is only 14 weeks and goes on newspaper in her room. I just figure she will eventually hold till morning. This morning I got up first at 7... So I'm hoping she will get the message that she is to wait till I get up. And so far she seems to be understanding, if she whimpers and I don't get up she puts herself back to bed. Lexi is a work in progress ..lol

[beanbag]

Bonnie is a work in progress too bless her. I feel sorry for my neighbours. I may buy them a bottle of wine just to apologise. I would have thought if it bothered them tha much they would let me know. Or i would like to think they would. I think its to do with being occupied aswell. I dont think her toys do it for her. We got a stag bar for her this evening so we will see how she goes if we give her that after toilet time.