sleeping through the night

[Jakesmom]

Our new Golden Retriever puppy Luke (7 1/2 months old now), is not sleeping through the night. He can (and does if exhausted after a full day of day care and more walks at night), but most nights he wakes us up several times, maybe once to go outside and potty, mostly for petting/playing or who knows what. He was crate trained during the day when we were gone, but slept with us at night. We got him at 3 months, and he was pretty good at sleeping at night until he got to be around 5 1/2 months, which coincided with a general major increase in energy level. He gets several walks per day, plays with our cocker, often goes to the dog park, and a once or twice a week goes to daycare for 6-8 hours. He is very sweet and generally pretty well behaved in the house.

We would prefer to not crate him at night, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions.

Jakesmom

[Taz_Zoee]

I wish I had a suggestion for you, but I'm dealing with the same issue. My four year old Aussie does not sleep through the night. Sometimes she wants out to potty and other times she just wakes up for nothing. It doesn't help that I am a super light sleeper and wake up at the slightest sound.
We crate our almost 9 month old puppy at night but Zoee has never been crated. I'm thinking we should reverse who is crated because Taggart can sleep through the night with no problems. We do not crate him on the weekends (unless I want to sleep in :p then I'll put him in the crate for about an hour in the morning).
Usually I can just tell Zoee to lay down and she does, unless she really needs to potty.
I'll be curious to see others ideas/suggestions on this topic. :)

[shepgirl]

I'm a light sleeper also and one that needs lots of sleep. No way would I ever live through my dogs waking me. From what I have read and been told at clinics dogs who do this usually do it for recreation, in other words they rule the roost.
You would have to start from scratch crate training the dog again. Let it out just before you retire and then crate it for the night in another room. The dog will probably howl and fuss for some time but you're supposed to ignore it (I know- hard to do). The more you go to the dog the longer it takes for the dog to learn that bedtime is quiet time until you get up. A dog of that age can hold through the night easily. Not an easy thing to do but the end result is a good night's sleep. Good luck, I almost feel how tired you must be.