[Mercy Medical]

My girlfriend and I got a dog last Saturday (if you've read my previous thread, then I'm being repetitive. :-D) and we are having some issues getting him to sleep through the night. The first few nights we had him in the living room in his crate where he barked for a bit, but eventually went to sleep. We eventually moved him from the crate in the living room to our bedroom per some advice given here. Things have been much better as far as we don't have to worry about barking anymore (we don't crate him in our room, we just let him roam and sleep on the bed, but he usually ends up ultimately falling asleep on the floor), however, he tends to pace about the room while we're trying to go to sleep and he seems a bit restless. He also wakes up at least once a night to go potty, then after he gets back in all he wants to do is play and unfortunately all his Moms want to do is sleep! We tend to just ignore him if he's pacing or let him chew on his bone by himself. Is there anything else I should be doing? Eventually, I'd like him to be able to sleep through the night. Is this a behavior new dogs typically grow out of? Should I be trying to get him to lay down and settle down on his bed (getting him to settle is a bit difficult in general right now) or should we just continue to ignore him? He does a pretty good job of not getting into a whole lot of trouble during the night since he's allowed to free roam the room. He'll pick up clothes if they're on the floor (I try to hide most of anything that he could destroy before we go to sleep), but he doesn't typically chew on them...just picks them up, nips at them and then leaves them alone.

Anyway, any general advice on night time routines, etc would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[reeskujo]

The best way to get them to sleep through the night is the same thing you do with kids...Wear him out! make sure he gets plenty of excercise during the day so that he's good and tired at night..

Also at 1yr. of age if you are stopping his water at least 2 hr.s before bed and walking him right before bed there's no reason he can not hold his pee throughout the night...

My Akita is 4 mths old and has been sleeping through the night with out a potty break for almost 3 weeks...

What's happening is he's gotten so used to you letting him out in the middle of the night that it's become routine and most dogs are just like yours once they've been asleep for awhile and you then get up to let them out they are thenn wide awake and ready to play...kind of like a toddler who wakes up from their nap...

Start wearing him out during the day and put an end to the potty breaks in the middle of the night and hopefully it won't take long before he's sleeping through the night.