[noobtesting]

I just got a 8 week old puppy on Saturday Oct. 13 and am having trouble crate training her. My wife and I have had one other dog but he was 1 year old and was pretty much already crate trained so we didn't have to worry about it but the puppy is a different story. I have done a lot of research on it and have come up with covering her crate with a blanket, putting music on and giving her a kong filled with peanut butter to help her get through the night. Right now she whine's nonstop, after about 1 hour I get up and take her out to go to the bathroom. Then when I put her back in she is right back at it, I am going to be trying the music and kong tonight but was just curious if any one else had some other ideas. I need some sleep lol

 

[Tales from the Doghouse]

We have a now 8 month old golden retriever named Tonka (and a 2yr old beagle named Dexter). When Tonka was 7 weeks old, we had the same problem of him whining in the crate all night long. Like you, we tried everything: Kong, blanket over crate, music... Finally, we just started ignoring him: one of us would stay in our bedroom with him while the other slept in the spare bedroom. Then every second night, we switched. I also started feeding him all his meals inside the crate, and I think that really helped. Within a week, Tonka was sleeping through the night.

 

[armk]

My puppy whined non-stop in her crate at first too. I had read that she might do that, and that ignoring her (when I know all her needs are met of course) was the best thing to do. We keep her crate in our room, and now she only whines if we leave the room in the morning without letting her out.

My best advice is to make sure your puppy has been fed and watered at least two hours before going into the crate. A general rule of thumb for puppies is that they can hold their bladder for however many months old they are, so give the puppy enough time to actually need to go before putting them to bed.

My other advice is to put the puppy to bed when you go to bed and the first thing in the morning should be to put them outside. It took my Sierra till she was about 10 weeks old before she stopped waking up at 3 a.m. needing to pee, but now she sleeps through the night, every night, and willingly goes into her crate at bedtime.

Good luck!

 

[bethelnurse10]

We've had our pup for 2 weeks now, he's 10 weeks old and we had the same problem. He was crated in a spare bedroom with a radio, blanket over the crate everything we could think of. For 2-3 nights he just barked, we'd take him out every couple of hours but it was hard to get any good sleep that way. Finally we decided to put the crate in the bedroom. He still whines occasionally but when he does we take him out and then if he still whines we put our fingers by or in the crate and it seems to comfort him. Hope it's going better by now : )