RE: going out at night
I will check with the vets on this (I have 4 coming to a Christmas Party -- all from different practices and from different vet schools) regarding if and when restricting water for 7 hours at night is appropriate. Will repost the consensus of opinion then. Nancy Melone -Original Message- From: Clark & Kris Osojnicki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 10:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: going out at night I have to agree with MaryAnn on this. Restricting water may just cause a urinary tract problem. A young puppy is a baby, and frequent potty needs just goes with the territory. My theory for my own dogs, and my students, is if the puppy immediately relieves himself upon being let out, then he needed to go, and you just have to deal with it until he matures a bit. If on the other hand, upon getting outside, he starts chasing leaves, and looking for toys, or twigs, and going potty is an "after thought" then possibly next time he complains, you attempt to wait him out a little while before "jumping" to his request. Kris Clark and Kris Osojnicki and the Bevy of mostly Berners Haley, Mara, Lexi, Cassie & Niko (& Pearle the Border Collie) Chalet & Tiki (both in loving memory) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: going out at night
We just went through all this. I missed how old the puppy is but I can tell you what has worked for us. Cooper is now 7/8 months old. We picked up his water at 9:00 p.m. He went out at least once/twice in the middle of the night (at very first it was thrice!). For a brief time he went out at 11:00, 2:00a.m. then 4 - 5 a.m. followed by 7:00 a.m. He weaned himself to longer and longer stretches. We kept him in our room so we could hear him whine to go out. He quickly out grew the baby play pen and was allowed to roam our room all night by the time he was 4- 5 months old. I would have to say that was about the time he was on an 11p.m and 7a.m. schedule (with an occasional mid night run if the days were especially warm and we were playing hard and getting lots of drinks late in the evening). Now, There are some days when he will go out at 11:00 p.m and not again until 9:00 a.m. - but that is most definitely weekends when no one is up and making noise. We still pick up the water (and always have - we also have a GSD who is 15 years old) after 9:00/10:00 p.m. But we raise children too (6 of them) and its our general rule that there are no drinks this late so everyone gets a good night sleep! I disagree that the habit will be a bad one letting the puppy out in the middle of the night. As you can see - our Cooper grew into a nice schedule just fine (and at first I think it was at least every two hours at night for the first month). Good luck to you! Remember this stage quickly passes. You all will do great! Maria Silva Pittsburgh, PA
Re: going out at night
Hi I must respectfully disagree with this :) A small puppy will need to go out at night for some time, and taking away water just to make it more convenient for the owner seems like an unfortunate tactic. I also do not think that a puppy that needs to go out during the night is suggesting urinary tract issues -- I think that the reality is that they are babies. Would you withhold food and water from an infant or even a toddler just so that you could sleep longer? I wouldn't. At some point I would start waiting it out when the puppy begins crying to see if s/he will just go back to sleep. Dogs do learn to go all night without going out -- puppies just need us to be patient with them :) Mary-Ann Bowman Utah
RE: going out at night
Jackie says: This is my question: someone told me I shouldn't take him out at night at all because I'm training a bad habit he will never break. Is this true? >From Nancy: At what time in the evening do you pick up and put away his water bowl at night? If you go to bed at 10, pick it up around *:00 or 8:30. If he has had access to water all day, he will be fine through the night. After his morning pee, give him a nice bowl of water. If you do this, you should have a pee free night without forcing him to hold it -- which I think is a very bad idea. There are simpler solutions that do no damage to his little system and I would use those first. If he still wakes you up to go after a few days of lifting the bowl at 8 PM, I would have his urinary track checked. Nancy Melone
Re: going out at night
> This is my question: someone told me I > shouldn't take him out at night at all because I'm training a bad habit he > will never break. Is this true? Nope..at least not in my recent experience. Nicco at 18 weeks sleeps through the night for 7 hours at a stretch. And I made sure he went out every 3-4 hours as a young pup at nighttime. Although I have to say this..he never woke me up in the middle of the night even as a young pup. I got into the habit of setting the alarm to wake up after 4 hours to take him out to pee. And what a job it was getting him to get out of bed!!! He's a real sleepy head once he goes down for the night! I actually had to have a treat on hand to get him out of his crate to go out in the middle of the night! Now we are both very happy to sleep through the night! Cindy Reid and Nicco - who likes to take his time getting up in the morning - stretch, roll onto back, thump the tail, stretch again...
Re: going out at night
Jackie- A Berner pup's bladder capacity will typically increase dramatically between 8-12 weeks. If Parker sleeps near your bed, help him develop his holding skills by giving him a few moments of alerting you he needs to go out before you respond. Our pups are usually sleeping in 5 hr segments at night by 10 weeks and 6-7 hrs by 12-14 weeks. Ruth Reynolds Pioneer Bernese www.jersey.net/~mountaindog/rar [EMAIL PROTECTED]
