# 9 mo pup getting up 2x a night to pee/poo?



## daniellamarcella (Oct 18, 2013)

Vika has been an awesome pup, all things considered. She's very well trained, listens most of the time, does great with dogs & people, and knows her place in the family pack in general. 

She has a routine for most things except feeding time. So far, it hasn't been a huge issue--when she was a small pup, she didn't scarf down her food and she'd only eat when she felt like it, so we'd just leave the food out and she'd eat it when she was hungry. Now, we feed her twice a day and just set her food out morning and night. She doesn't always want to eat her food right away; sometimes she'll eat first thing in the morning, and sometimes she'll eat after the dog park. 

At night, she sometimes doesn't eat all of her food until 9 or 10 PM, right before we go to bed. She'll also drink a lot right before bedtime most nights as well. As you can guess, she frequently has to get up in the night to pee and/or poo. Since we live in an apartment complex, this involves getting dressed, out of bed, and walking her to the appropriate pee area...quite a pain! It would be SO marvelous if she didn't wake through the night. 

A couple of questions: how many of you guys have food routines as far as timing goes? What would you suggest? 

Do you think it would be worth it to put food/water up around 8 PM and let her get a small drink if needed? 

What helped your pup sleep through the night?

She sleeps in bed with us, so when she needs to go she'll jump down and whine by the door. I'd definitely trade a weeks' worth of sleepless nights from the whining to get to sleeping through the night, which I think we'll have to do to get her used to the new routine. Any tips or insight you guys could offer on what you did or what you think we should do would be awesome!


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Its probably the eating late that is the cause of the problem. Leave her evening meal out say from 5-7 pm, then pick it up. I would still let her have free access to her water. Dry dog food, and even some of the things we add to the food requires them to need free access to water. If it continues you might try picking up the water 2 hours after the dog food is picked up. But give her a couple of weeks to get adjusted to the new feeding schedule, before you mess with her water. I guess you can tell, I don't like a dog to not have access to water.
Vs are creatures of habit, and it may take her a little while to adjust to not going out at night.


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## gem2304 (Mar 7, 2013)

I would also recommend feeding her earlier, I give Ted his last meal at about 7pm but he usually eats it all straight away so I don't get the problem of him picking at it.

Leave her water down all the time if you can, I find Ted gets really thirsty for a good couple of hours after he has eaten so I wouldn't like to think that he wouldn't have access to water although I know some people that take water away an hour before bed so I suppose you could monitor how much she is drinking before bed.

She might be stuck in a routine of going out during the night, is it a recent development or has she always done it since a pup?

it must be so frustrating for you getting broken sleep on a regular basis, I really hope it gets better for you.


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## Chaos911 (Oct 30, 2013)

Have you ever crated at night? Perhaps go back to that with earlier dinner as suggested. And special loving time in eve to help you all with change of sleeping patterns. Good luck!


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## daniellamarcella (Oct 18, 2013)

Thanks TexasRed, gem2304, and Chaos911 for your answers! I think we'll put her food up and leave her water down and just see if we can monitor how much she's drinking before bed. 

She's usually been okay through the night...she'll sleep thru the night or wake up once. Seems like lately she's been waking up more through the night though. I really think it's mostly just the habit of eating/drinking a lot right before bedtime. 

She really is a sweetheart, and one of the best behaved V's i've met (that's just mostly due to her awesome temperament ), but I think it's time to make sure she masters proper behavior & manners during the night as well as during the day. 

I'll see if I can post an update in a few weeks and see how things go with the new schedule.


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## emilycn (Jul 30, 2013)

Lua was doing exactly this at exactly the same age. I started crating her for bed, and when she slept in her crate, she would sleep all night without needing to go out. I think when she slept in my bed, we would just not sleep as well, so _because_ she was awake anyway, she felt like she needed to pee... when nobody wakes her up, though, she doesn't have to pee. it's like when you wake up in the middle of the night for some reason or another and you kind of have to pee but you're too lazy to get up and do it, so you try to just go back to sleep, but then eventually you can't ignore it anymore and you have to get up. Sleeping in her crate solved the problem for us.


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