[Drewmangroup]

I think Scout has day and night mixed up. I have written about my night time troubles and I thought they were behind us. I started ignoring her crying at night and all was well and she would sleep all night. We also have been leaving her in her crate all day without coming home at lunch and she is doing great. But...she was boarded over the long weekend (Labor Day) and since then we taken a few steps back. One bad habit she has now is not only crying in her crate but slobbering (she cries in a way that saliva just drips from her mouth) and she scratches at the corner of the crate bottom. Its worse than just crying because I go in there and the whole front part of the crate is wet like she peed (but its not pee) and it smells like bad doggy breath.

So she is now back to doing this at 2:30-3:30 am. Its really annoying. So a couple of nights ago I ignore it like I had done in the past. Well she peed in her crate. Well great so now I don't know if its her crying for attention or because she has to pee. So I am back to waking up in the middle of the night to let her outside. And she was doing so well with sleeping until out alarm went off. I am going to have to try and ignore her again.

So she basically sleeps during the day like I want her to sleep at night. Of course I also don't want to come home from work to pee. And she knows that we aren't home because it isn't wet in the front of her crate, so she hasn't cried and is always stretching when I come home. I have tried taking her on walks right before bed, with no help. Its not like she is running around before bed either, she settles down and lays on the couch so I know she is tired. Sometimes when I let her out she will go for water or something, and I think thats ok. It just sucks that all was going so well and I think the boarding and the possible situation that she could go in her crate somehow reverted her. The only problem is her crying and scratching is 10 time worse than just her crying like before. And this whole saliva thing, sometimes I think she peed in her crate it smells so bad. It doesn't seem like pee since its only in the front of the crate and its not all spread around like pee would be. Oh and she is about 1 year 4 months old.

 

[vonny]

The drooling sounds like she is very stressed.Dogs will increase their saliva production in stressful situations like travel.
You need to find the trigger for the stress and work to solve the problem.

 

[Drewmangroup]

I think the stress is that she is awake and doesn't want to sleep anymore. During the day, and she is in there for over 9 hours, she is fine. Acts like she just woke up when I get home.

 

[Murphys Dad]

I think that workout will help. I have noticed a considerable change in Chloe since we started our daily power walks. It will exhaust Scout and she'll definitely sleep better.

I take Chloe on those walks in the morning before I leave for work and it helps with her SA, but you should probably do something with Scout before bedtime.
Another suggestion is to have a stuffed kong ready by your side at night, so that if she wakes up, give it to her and she'll have something to do.

Just an idea!

 

[vonny]

Does she have to be crated at night,All day in a crate then all night as well is too much.Can she not be in a bed at night in a room somewhere if you do not want her in your bedroom.

 

[Drewmangroup]

Well I have tried doing the night walk ( I usually do a walk when I get home from work too) and it didn't help much. I will try again though. We still aren't sure what would happen if she slept outside her crate. I am not sure if she would pee, chew on stuff, or try to wake us up. We might have to try and experiment to see if she could sleep in our room. We have kind of tried it before when she is sleeping on the couch and to get her in our room, but as soon as she gets in there she gets all excited and wants to explore (we don't have the door open, so she isn't usually allowed in there). Right how she is crate across the house to make it easier for me to ignore her crying.

 

[Java]

Drew, I had Java crated at night early on, but soon realized that he was able to sleep on his dog bed in my room without incident. Yes, it'll there may be a small period of apprehension on your part about whether she'll chew or potty in your room, but if you can train her to slowly associate your room as a place of relaxation and comfort, she'll probably sleep peacefully. I know that some of our beagles do NOT like being crated much.

 

[Drewmangroup]

Yeah and thats a fine solution, but Scout is very anti stuffing. Every dog bed we have gotten has ended up with a hole chewed through and Scout sitting on a cloud (stuffing pulled out). We have this bench that would be perfect for her to lay on, we just need to get her on it and sleeping. I think we might try to carry her in when she is really really tired and maybe that will work. The only problem is that she still might wake up at 3am ready to go for the day. We have moved her crate about 3-4 different times to different rooms. I really think it was the boarding that messed her up a little bit.

 

[Murphys Dad]

It's not a regular night walk. Take her for an hour walk (or 45 min). Don't let her sniff much, just constant walking. It will exhaust her enough to be calmer.

 

[Drewmangroup]

Well its not like she is bouncing off the walls before bed. She usually gets tired about an hour before bedtime so she does get tired. It just seems like 6 hours is enough and she wakes up.

 

[Pegasus]

She sounds like my Marbles....sounds like she is bored and needs Exercise...A LOT!! Snoopy and Marbs are walked like 5x a day, but short, 20 mins...but then we HAVE to take Marbles to the dog park or walk longer b/c he gets bored and is horrible!!

Yeah, I have more things to do than go to the dog park 3x a week, but the benifit is worth it....just to be able to sit here and type on the forum...BIG DEAL...I havent been here for a long time, and rarely get to come here..but it is B/C I have to always watch him..He has so much energy!

Also, I agree w/above....ever thought about NOT crating in the night? I seriously crated Snoppy when we first got him almost all the time...day and night (b/c FI wanted him to be crated in night)

...now they sleep at our feet, and are wonderful...maybe you can start out doing a few hours out of the crate then some in the crate...we crated Snoops for almost 12 hours sometimes...how horrible, but we had to and didnt want him to be euthanized, so it was what we had to do...now Snoopy doesnt know what a crate is..hehe!!

Good luck and keep us updated!

Manda

 

[Drewmangroup]

Ok well I took the advice and we let Scout sleep with us last night. At first she got a little excited in the room, sniffing all around. Although her crate used to be in there so I dunno what the excitement was about. I guess because the room is off limits during the day. So we got her on the bed (she was tired before I brought her in) and she laid down. When the lights went off I think she understood it was bedtime. She snuggled up to me all night, not giving me much room! She is going to get pushed into a better position tonight. She switch between sleeping up towards my chest and down at my feet. My wife would perfer her st our feet if she has to be on the bed. We have a bench that would be perfect for her to sleep on and we tried carrying her over to it when she fell asleep, but she just jumped back in bed. She slept all night as far as I could tell. no puddles in the bed and I figured she would at least scratch at the door if she wanted to leave the room. The alarm didn't phase her when it went off. I put her outside while I was getting ready and when she came back in she wanted on back in the bedroom. But she had to settle for the crate during the day. I think she actually might sleep in on the weekends in our bed. Its going to take some getting used to, but I think this might work out. Hopefully allergies won't become an issue.

 

[Murphys Dad]

That's good! You might even consider getting her a nice fluffy bed to put in your room. Chloe loves to sleep with me, but she often goes to sleep on the couch, or on her bed (and she also has a crate).

 

[Drewmangroup]

So this morning she cried when I put her in the crate for the day. She hasn't done that in a loooong time. Probably pissed because she wanted to go back to the bed.