How to Keep Your Puppy from Crying at Night

Learn how to keep your puppy from crying at night from dog trainer Robert Haussmann of Dogboy, Inc. in this dog training video from Howcast.


So puppies crying at night is a complaint I hear a lot. It boils down to puppies being just young and energetic and not having an outlet for it. Especially before they have had all their vaccines and can go outside and play with dogs and explore their environment, they have a tendency to get really kind of antsy, and they'll go to sleep. They sleep half the day if you're at work. Then you come home. They play with you for a few hours, and then you expect them to go back to sleep and sleep through the night. It's very difficult for them. Making sure that they have a lot of stimulation throughout the day and a lot of exercise before bed.

There are ways to exercise your dog even if you can't leave the house, if the puppy's too young to go outside. Find activities. If you teach them to come when called, then you can practice back and forth through the house with other family members so the dog is running from the living room to the bedroom and back. You can also do training circuits with the dog, where it's come, sit, stay, down, stay. Obviously this requires some basic training, but it's a great way to stimulate the dog's brain mentally and also get the dog moving and physically active. Replacing all meals, instead of giving the dog it's meals out of a dog dish, a traditional dog food bowl, I would give it frozen inside hollow bleached bones or Kongs or other stuff-able teething toys that they sell for dogs, things like Kongs, hollow bones, and the like. Now things like that are going to keep the dogs mentally and physically active even at times that they would normally be sleeping, like these guys.

But if you are expecting the dog to sleep through the night, you have to make sure that you're giving the dog plenty of stimulation and activity. The dog should be comfortable in the bed and its crate. And sometimes covering the crate up so that it minimizes noise and light so that the dog has a little den will sometimes help the dog to sleep through the night a little bit more soundly. Also, if you're dog's getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, you might want to limit water before bed. You could talk to your vet. Certain breeds have different requirements, but for the most part if the dog is loaded full of water and then you're putting a dog with a full bladder or a full bowel in bed, it's going to wake up in the night to use the bathroom. So be sure that you have the dog going to sleep with an empty bladder, who's tired and fulfilled from its busy day. And that would be some advice on how to keep your puppy from crying at night.

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