# Middle of the night potty break



## RoxieVizsla (Apr 17, 2011)

As Roxie has been getting older, now 2 years old, some of her "quirks" are fading. Well, all except for one big one...Roxie asks to be let out around 2 am almost every night. Seriously, give or take 20-30 minutes around 2 am, like clock work. 

Currently, since we use a bell for Roxie to let us know when she needs to go out, when she rings the bell (even at 2 am) either my boyfriend or I get up and let her out. She always runs right out and goes to the bathroom (never a false alarm). We have started to try to call her back and convince her to stay in bed (oh ya, she sleeps with us), but that only works every once in a while. 

So I am asking for advice...Do we continue to let her out in the middle of the night or just ignore her? We have tried to move her feeding up to be sure she has plenty of time to go to the bathroom before bed. Our routine is the same, pretty much every night...bed around 10 pm. We tell her "potty & bed", to which she immediately goes outside to potty and then heads upstairs. There are even nights when she will poop before bed, when we leave her out at 2 am, and then again in the morning!

I just want to sleep through the night...help...please!


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## SteelCityDozer (Aug 25, 2011)

My friends weim is the same way at three years and I feared our penny would also be. But penny is 9 months currently and slowly but surely her middle of the night break is getting later and later (or we get up earlier) she's around 430 am so if I can get her to wait until 5 we just get up. 

Anywho. If she won't be ignored and encouraged back to bed I would try making her wait and hopefully her body will adjust to the wait time then you extend again. Like crate training. If she's always at 230 try ignoring for 15-30 min before breaking down. Once she's adjusted her routine to the new time, make her wait again. Make sense? I have no idea if this will work but worth a try.


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## gunnr (Aug 14, 2009)

I think she will slowly adjust, but in all honesty you have a good system going now. It's inconvenient, but predictable. 
You'd probably find a lot of folks envious of your current situation.


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## lyra (Nov 2, 2012)

RoxieVizsla said:


> when she rings the bell .......


....the servant comes?! 

More seriously, I have a 14 week old puppy who is my first dog, so please feel free to ignore what I am going to say as the rants of ignoramus. 

TBH I was a bit shocked by your post - the thought of being woken every night for two years filled me with horror. Fortunately we had Lyra going through the night at 12 weeks. 

I did notice you made the following post about 14 months ago so what when wrong?



RoxieVizsla said:


> Roxie has been sleeping in bed with us since she was about 11 weeks old. She has never had an accident in the crate or the bed. You're right, the hours of sleep get longer as your pup grows. At first she was going to bed with us around 10 and licking our faces to tell us she needed to go out around 2 or 3 in the morning, but now she can make it through the night. Some days she even will last 10 hours before we finally suggest to her to go outside, but then again there are still days around 5 am that she needs to go out. She has been very good at always letting us know. We have been using a bell on a string on the door for her to ring when we are not in the room.
> 
> I know a lot of people perfer their dogs to not sleep with them, but I love having Roxie be such a cuddle bug!


My suggestion would be to go back to crating Roxie at night. This has a few advantages; you get more control over when she can go, you remind her who is he boss and it stops her sneaking off and toileting somewhere in the house. There should be no physical reason for her to go in the night (and as you have said yourself, she has been fine going through the night in the past), she is doing it because it is a habit and part of her routine and possibly because she likes the attention. Does Roxie know who's boss?

Once crated it would probably be a bit of trial and error to find the best way of breaking her habit. You can go for the 'quick fix' of just ignoring her or just gradually lengthen the amount of time before you take her out. She may also sleep better if on her own (even if you miss her!)


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## RubyRoo (Feb 1, 2011)

This is one of the reasons we still crate Ruby at night. She would totally try to pull this. We have the bells she uses during the day so I would assume she would do this in the middle of the night.

We keep Ruby on a strict potty routine. I know after dinner she has at least 2 poops and 1 pee before bed. If she doesn't get those in before the crate then 9 times out of 10 she will cry in the crate to go at 2am or so. 

I think you need to get Roxie on more of a routine. I remember when Ruby was 10-12 weeks old we would get up and take her out in the middle of the night. Our breeder told us to stop immediately and that is what crate training is for. Time to go back to basics or expect getting up every night. One thing I have learned is these dogs thrive on a routine.


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