Wanting to stop it before it becomes a habit.

[wolf]

Sorry, I didn't know what else to call it.

Whiz has taken to wanting to go and relieve himself in the early hours of the morning.

I know why, it's because as soon as my daughter is home he doesn't want to come out of the bedroom. During the day when it's just me he's happy to be in whatever room I'm in. If Rob is around he does come out of the bedroom, but isn't quite as comfortable although he is getting there. I put this down to the fact that I am home most of the day while Rob goes out to work most of the day. Whiz is more used to me.

He is very wary of Lili, not in any bad way, but he doesn't know how to deal with small humans so chooses to keep out of her way. Unfortunately he doesn't yet understand that he's 'safe' once she's gone to bed. Neither Lili or Whiz have done anything untoward towards each other. Lili will go up to him and stroke him and walk away. When out walking he's happy for her to take his lead, it's just at home, the bedroom is his 'safe place'.

In the evening it is a struggle to get him out of the bedroom in order to go outside, it currently is a two man job. He shows very little interest even if I get the lead out for a second time. Then when we finally do get him in the garden and he realises that he's not coming back in until he's 'been' he will do a little pee and race straight back in.

So therefore by about 2am he's busting to go out.

Now I realise that the timidity will take time, he is clearly getting more confident around Lili, but I don't want him to be in a habit of going to the loo in the early hours by the time he's comfortable with her.

Tonight I'm going to see if I can manage to get him out for a short walk before bedtime, although he is quite stubborn when he doesn't want to do something.

My usual routine is to let him out in the garden at about 6.30am, get everyone up and do the school/work run, come home and walk Whiz at some point before doing the afternoon school run. I don't walk him at a set time as it won't always be possible to do so. He is given his meal at lunchtime.

I've not had to deal with such a timid dog before, so this is a bit of a learning curve for me.

Any advice or options would be fantastic as I would like to have an arsenal to choose from before it becomes a habit.

Thanks xx

[bertiesmum]

Hey, when I first get bertie he would need to go toilet at that time but now we take him for a walk at about 7ish or maybe a bit later (as sometimes dinner is late) and because of that he relieves himself a lot and therefore doesn't need to go at night, even if the walk is just 5-10 minutes i find that bertie doesn't need to go at night.
As I'm with bert all day (plus he used to suffer from bad wind) he gets fed three times a day, I always give him dinner after the evening walk as I find when he has a full tummy he sleeps a lot more!
With regards whiz not realy wanting his lead on to get k. The garden could that be because he would like a walk but k owe he is only
going garden? Make Walks exciting such as giving hi
a small treat when he goes out the door the.n he may associate walks with fun :-)

bert didn't like kids and my boyfriend has 7 nieces/nephews so whenever they are round I get them to slowly aproach bert and give him a small treat which means now he likes them, as bert is a real foodie!!! :-) hope
I have helped :-)

[wolf]

Thanks

I don't put his lead on just for the garden. It's only when he's going out. When I get the lead out when it's just me he's beginning to get all excited at the thought of going out, but when we're all around, even at weekends, and I get the lead out it's an effort to get him moving. Once he's out the door he's fine, it's just getting him out of the door in the first place!

I also try to get Lili to give him treats, but he won't take a treat out of your hand yet. He'll sniff them and indicate that he wants them by nudging your hand, but won't eat them until you've put them on the floor and moved away.

[bertiesmum]

Bertie refuses point blank to accept a treat from my dad, so he just places it on the ground for him. Sorry i misread about the lead thing! I've never been in that situation, but I think I would make it exciting and once he is out i would give him
a treat

[Ian]

Hi wolf, sounds like a routine needs to be established in Whizs mind, and a bit of confidence building with other people coming and going from your house. He certainly should be able to go through the night, although like Whiz, Sean is often reluctant to go out near bedtime we always make him go, and he always does do a normal wee, i.e. it's not usually a really quick one. We usually let him out in the garden to get his final job of the day done between 9:30 and 10pm. He then sleeps through and is usually let out at about 6am. Although it's not ideal you having to get up at 2am at least he is getting you up to take him out rather than doing his job in the house.

[joethehound]

hi
it took us a while to establish a routine for Joe, but once we had worked it out things now run like clockwork, and because we have a set timed routine with him he now knows what's expected at certain times of the day...... we realised that we needed to wait at least 4 hours after food before taking him out, that way we had 'accidents' in the night. To begin with we gave him little treats and loads of praise when he went to the toilet either in the garden or on a walk, he soon got the message! which seemed to help him alot...
The routine has become.......
Morning walk any time between 7.30am - 9am
then gets the option to go out during the day but to be honest rarely does as cant be bothered to sacrifice his top spot on the sofa in front of the telly.....
dinner at 4.30-5pm
then more snooze time/resting
walk out no earlier then 9pm.
We realised that if we leave it at least 4 hours before taking him out he will ALWAYS go to the toilet no problem. But again, treats to begin with really helped encourage him and make him realise that going to the toilet = good things!

as for taking treats from your hand, well joe wouldnt do that for weeks when we first got him, keep with it, it will come....

good luck!

[funwaydaisy]

Hi Wolf im just curious what would he do if you told him to go back to bed?
we have had the same problem with Daisy she can go out at 11pm and then will want to go out at 2am we did do it for a while buut i just told her to go back to bed well shouted not to loudly to lay down which she did. where she stayed to around 6am told her she was a good girl think a lot was to do with her being cold in the night we now make sure 11pm and she does go through the night abbey on the other hand 11pm and shes stiill sleeping 9am
its just getting that last toilet

[wolf]

Well we've had our evening walk. It took two of us to drag him out of the bedroom but once the front door was open he was happy to go.

Hopefully he's empty and here's to a full nights sleep ;D

[funwaydaisy]

fingers crossed for a good nights sleep x

[wolf]

Mar 16, 2010 22:21:39 GMT funwaydaisy said:

Hi Wolf im just curious what would he do if you told him to go back to bed?
we have had the same problem with Daisy she can go out at 11pm and then will want to go out at 2am we did do it for a while buut i just told her to go back to bed well shouted not to loudly to lay down which she did. where she stayed to around 6am told her she was a good girl think a lot was to do with her being cold in the night we now make sure 11pm and she does go through the night abbey on the other hand 11pm and shes stiill sleeping 9am
its just getting that last toilet

At the moment if I tell him to go back to bed he will for a while and then get up again, each time I tell him to go back to bed, he does, but there's less time between him going back to bed and disturbing us again as he gets increasingly agitated.

[funwaydaisy]

its funny when other half is away daisy sleeps through the night when he is here she tends to get up in the night but he did do what i told him and she slept all night

[funwaydaisy]

Hi Wolf how was last night, did he go through the night?

[wolf]

Well, sort of. He didn't need to go out, but he did still wake me up at 2ish. However Rob was just about coming to bed at that time, (and then wonders why he's tired by the end of the week ) so Rob might have disturbed him. Rob is out tonight, so I'm going to have to walk Whiz with Lili earlier than I'd prefer. I dunno what time Rob will be in or if he'll be in any fit state to walk a dog, so I'd better not leave it to him. ;D

[yvonned]

I had a couple of weeks recently where Cassie would want to go out between 2.30 and 3.00 in the morning, she would do a pee and go into fox search mode or start bouncing around the lawn and wouldn't come in when I called her. I'd be fuming and when I got back to bed I couldn't sleep because I was wound up with her. I found the answer was to put her on an old tracking lead go out in the garden with her and reel her in when she'd peed. After about 3 nights problem solved, early morning pees had become boring.
Don't know if you feed Wiz's' food as one meal, if you do you could try giving him 1/3rd as a breakfast after his morning walk to see if that makes a difference. Good luck, disturbed sleep makes you feel tired all day
Yvonne

[wolf]

Well last night could have gone better. Basically Rob was out on the lash being a durty stop-out! ;D But it meant that Whiz didn't settle until he came home at about 2am (would have been earlier if he hadn't forgotten to get off at Romford and had to go through to Shenfield) Then Rob had fallen asleep on the sofa and Whiz was trying unsuccessfully to get him up, so I was up at 3am letting him out again He had got his evening walk, but as I had to take Lili with me it was earlier than I would have preferred.

Mind you, the lazy bones didn't get up until I got home after the school run ;D