Question about recent night crying

sailfloe

Hi All, I had a quick question, and I was wondering if I could get some insight from others

Violet, our 6 month old Shiba, has recently started crying at night. She's never done this before (she's slept through the night since the day we got her), and it doesn't appear to be a need to go outdoors.

She sleeps in a crate that's hooked up to a playpen (so she go in and out on her own), and typically snoozes in the playpen with her toys until we fall asleep, then wanders into her crate for the night. The last few nights though, she's woke us up whining/crying, while sitting in her playpen looking at our bed.

At first we though she needed to go out, but since she didn't seem to need to go, last night I tried just taking her out of the playpen and putting her on the floor with some toys -- and she just sprawled out and went to sleep without a complaint!

Any ideas as to what be the issue? We haven't changed her exercise or feeding patterns, and she always gets walked right before bedtime. Is this just a case of her being a teenager and pushing boundaries, or...?

CrimsonO2

boundary exploration/boredom would be my guess. My other suggestion would be to up the intensity or increase the distance in her exercise and training. At 6 months, she's likely got a lot more energy to burn than at 3-4 months.

Thanks,
Jesse

tjbart17

I think Jesse nailed it. She's becoming a grown up lady and wanting to do her own thing. I recently had the same thing happen with my Kai. He was born sleeping in a crate, and then hit 5 months and started crying at around 3-4 am!! I wasn't too happy. :0

Our nightly walks have doubled in time, and this helps because he is too tired to wake up in the middle of the night to beg, or cry, to get out.

sailfloe

That's what I had though, but she's been doing it even on nights where she was tearing around at the dog park earlier. Still, no harm in seeing if longer night time walks help.

CrimsonO2

Start challenging her with doing obedience training of more difficult or new tricks. Sometimes, draining mental energy can be more effective than draining physical energy.

Jesse

tjbart17

A good puzzle or game would work as well, like a Busy Buddy, Dog Tornado Puzzle, or Dog Brick Puzzle.

StaticNfuzz

Sounds like typical antics to test to see what works...

Yep a good workout walk with obedience when you come home in the evening may help in keeping her settled and sleeping though the night.
Like Tara mentions putting in a busy toy or kong may help also.

Do your best to ignore it so it does not get habituated. I have a set of ear plugs for situations like that and I don't respond verbally at all.

Also, make sure you take up/remove access to water before bedtime so she doesn't have to urgently go in the middle of the night. The point being you want to keep her on schedule.

Snf

violet_in_seville

Thanks for all the feedback. She has a busy buddy that she exhibits absolutely no interest in (though she likes her kongs and other toys) but we'll check out some of the other toys mentioned and probably try to walk her more and do more obedience training (we've been slacking a bit ever since she went into heat because it was nearly impossible to motivate her with anything when she was in season).

As for the schedule thing, we tend to keep a rather late schedule (the last walk is usually between midnight and 1, bedtime around 2am, and then a morning walk around 8 am). However, I've been a bit sick recently and in at least 2 of the 3 cases where she cried, I went to bed earlier and Brian would be awake. Then yesterday when I passed out on the floor around 8pm she did start crying around 8:30 pm and seemed to deliberately wake me up. Is it possible that she wants both of us to be awake when she is (keeping our, and her regular schedule)? We thought that we keep her pretty tired (she's a fairly mellow dog) since she gets between 5-6 walks a day (usually 2 long ones ranging between a mile and two miles, and the rest are short ones ranging 15-25 minutes each) but it sounds like we should up the distance.

sailfloe

So, it turns out that this was just a pushing boundaries issues. We upped her exercise, with no impact on the crying. But once we ignored her (it took 20-25 minutes), she quieted down and went to bed. Hopefully she'll go back to being an angel at bedtime before too long.