Sleeping through the night...

[JudyN]

Jasper almost always needs to go to the garden some time in the night, often around 3am, for a wee and a poo. He's fairly quick about it (though on these warmer nights he may have a sniff round the garden) but I'd obviously prefer him to sleep through. Has anyone any suggestions?

Other details:
He's 19 months old. Raw fed, chicken carcasses for breakfast and mince & veg around 6pm. Small bedtime biscuit. He is a fairly frequent pooer - 4-5 per day - but since moving to raw food these are small and firm.
He sleeps on a dog bed next to our bed.
Exercise is normally two walks of 1-1.5 hours a day, the first around 9am and the second normally around 4pm. Sometimes if the second walk is in the evening he'll sleep through, but it doesn't normally make a difference. Training & play happen fairly randomly, when I have the time and he has the inclination!
He normally settles down on his 'downstairs' bed around 7pm. I take him outside at 10.30pm. He understands 'widdle' and 'poo' and gets rewarded for each, but often when I ask for a poo he just barks at me, which I take to mean he can't go. Even if he does do a poo, he's still likely to be up in the night.

I have fibromyalgia and need my sleep - on the other hand, I'd rather get up for 5 mins and then get back to bed than instigate a 'cure' that would involve ignoring him whining all night long (and then finding out he really did need to go out ). I normally just curl up on the sofa while he's outside and wait for him to come back, though I do wonder if I should take him out on the lead to make it less interesting.

[emmabeth]

Hmm..

He should be able to wait all night, so I think it is that his schedule is not quite right for your sleep pattern rather than him not able to hold it in.

I would put the evening meal back later - which might sound contrary! but if you reckon on it taking him between 8/9 hours to digest his meal... that takes you to 3am - hello! need a poo now!

So put teatime back to 9pm, with a short walk say, around the garden, up the street and back and around the garden again at 10 and then again at 11pm.

Yes to taking him in the garden on a long leash - potty time is potty time and play time happens AFTER potty time, not before. If during the day you are superhot on rewarding the toilet by removing the leash for a game he should soon cotton on and go immediately he is taken out.

If he seems hungry before teatime, then give him a couple of biscuits at 6pmish.

THe other thing to consider is swapping the meals round so the boney harder to digest meal is given in the evening, and the easy to digest meat/veg is given at breakfast.

I reckon I woudl try ALL these things, and then once you have the result you want (ie, him holding on until you wake up!), vary them one by one until you know what is really making the difference.

For the first few nights after you have made these changes, do get up if he asks you to, but take him out on a long line (sorry no sofa snooze for you) to ensure he isnt just going out for a sniff of the night air and a good look at the stars! I certainly wouldn't recommend leaving him to whine, you are right that this is a bad plan as inevitably SOME of the time he is going to need a poo, and it will just teach him that crying gets you to do something which is never a lesson a dog needs to know!

[JudyN]

Thank you! I'll give it a try

[JudyN]

I failed at the first hurdle He has a Pavlovian reaction to us putting our knives and forks down at the end of a meal, and the thought of making him wait - given that he is an utterly food-obsessed dog with low frustration threshold and a fragile brain - was far worse than the thought of being up for 5 mins in the night. I don't think a biscuit would have sufficed...

Still, I'm sure you're on the right lines - maybe I'll try delaying our tea so he won't expect his to turn up so soon!

[emmabeth]

Sorry but I suggest thwarting this by eating out or in secret or just later.

[JudyN]

Just a quick update... I have failed at delaying his tea - can't face the whingeing and pitiful looks. And the lure of the sofa as opposed to going out into the garden with him at 3.30am is too much But I have switched round his breakfast and tea, and this has definitely helped He's generally going through longer, particularly if we've had a later tea, and has managed a few nights of sleeping through till 7ish. Not so often if he's been snacking on apples again when, ironically, it all goes pear shaped

So apologies for not following your advice Emmabeth, but the results we've had from the changes we have made means that I do at least know what the solution is. I've always been a light sleeper so being up for five minutes or so in the night doesn't really make that much difference.

So thanks for the advice

[emmabeth]

Hehehe, yes its EASY to give advice, heck its easy to know what you should do. Sometimes its not that easy to actually do it.

I think if he were mine I would slowly put the meal time back in relation to my own meal, and fob him off with a couple of treats in a Kong at my actual meal time, until he was eating later (perhaps also feeding breakfast a little later to compensate too).

[JudyN]

Now I need to work out how to stop him waking me up because his blankie has fallen off and he needs to be tucked back in again... Hubby is adamant that no dog of his is going to wear PJs

[Nettle]

Give in now - pjs. In winter, mine wear coats at night because our house isn't heated.

[Suzette]

I love that picture of Jasper under his blankie! Too cute!

And no heat Nettle??? Yikes, I'm not sure where you live in the UK, but aren't your winters there pretty cold? I have an intolerance to cold, so it makes me shiver just thinking of you without heat. Now my sister would love it! She's the direct opposite of me - loves the cold!

[Nettle]

I'm in the south, so it doesn't get all that cold. We had snow last winter and the one before - went down to -10C to -15C and a bit below some nights - very unusual for here. We did leave the gas fire on those nights!

Mr. Nettle doesn't like central heating - or any heating - so we don't have any except the one gas fire in the living room (we don't get so many open-plan houses over here) which is normally enough. I used to swear I'd leave him every winter, but I'm used to it now.

[Suzette]

I'm in the south, so it doesn't get all that cold. We had snow last winter and the one before - went down to -10C to -15C and a bit below some nights - very unusual for here. We did leave the gas fire on those nights!

Mr. Nettle doesn't like central heating - or any heating - so we don't have any except the one gas fire in the living room (we don't get so many open-plan houses over here) which is normally enough. I used to swear I'd leave him every winter, but I'm used to it now.

Well, a gas fire and some warm, toasty dogs to huddle up with probably gets you through the worst.

[Nettle]

There's an Annie Tempest cartoon where the host says to the guest that it's a cold night so she's put an extra dog on the bed English country house humour! (we don't have one of those - just a small 1930s semi)

[JudyN]

Soooo, having decided that he was more interested in seeing off the imaginary monsters at the bottom of the garden, we're now at the stage where he'll wake me once or twice a night wanting to go out, but when I tell him to go back to bed and settle down he will do. When he comes down in the morning he isn't in a rush to go out, so he hasn't been hanging on desperately all night. The one time he did whine persistently I took him out and he did go (after chasing the monsters away).

Do you think the penny will soon drop and he won't bother asking in the first place (unless he really needs to go)?

[Nettle]

Yup. It's all part of growing up. And as you have so astutely observed in another post, the terrier side is ruling now while the deerhound part is still a puppy. It'll come.