# Refusing to sleep



## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

Well our almost 10 week old had now taken to not sleeping. He will do everything in his power not to. He sleeps in a crate by our bed at night. Last night he woke me up at 2 am because he was chewing on a kong bone. Then he had me up at 3 and again at 4 as he was chewing so loudly it woke me up. He is usually out like a light at night. At 4 am this morning I had enough. Took him out of the crate to go potty took the kong bone out and put him back in his kennel. He was up and digging in his kennel by 5. I took him out and he was playing like he was overly tired. Not listening constantly biting running around like crazy. I finally got him to settle by laying with him on our sofa. He loves the sofa and I wonder if he only will sleep there sometimes. We don't let him have free run of the furniture he can only come up when invited and he has to remain calm, no jumping, running, chewing or else it's back to the floor. Once he fell asleep he was out for an hour and a half till I woke him up to pee and put him in the kennel so I could go to work. I've been trying to put him down in his main kennel for naps, that doesn't work so well. He pretty much refuses to sleep in there and if he does close his eyes if you breath to hard he wakes up. So he's not getting resting sleep. I feel bad because the only way he stays in the kennel is of the door is closed. But I can not get him to calm down unless he is in his crate. Then he just lays calmly but really won't sleep. If I let him out he usually escalates to overstimulation again. 
His excessive at 10 weeks is 2-3 10 minute training sessions playtime with toys in the house when awake, kongs, and some off leash time in the yard running around and chasing a ball. This is usually about 40 min to an hour a day. He is kenneled for 4 hours in the morning. I come home for lunch and play for 30 - 35 min. Then he's in the kennel again for about another 3- 3:30 hours. This has been going on now for a couple days. Any thoughts?


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## mommaofalot (Apr 10, 2014)

I have not been at this very long and I'm sure all Vs are different but koda has been sleeping through the night the last two nights and I'm think its because we play with her for like 45min before bed. We play lots of fetch and I drag the toy on the floor while she tries to grab it. Like I said I'm new here so others might have more to offer thats just what seems to be working working for us ( i think  ).


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Sounds like he is just not tired, and trying to find away to entertain himself at night.


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

Oh we play lots of fetch and dragging his favorite toys around the house. He does calm down and focus for treats if we do some training. After typing the original post we went for a 20 min walk and he's still bouncing all over the place. 
He didn't sleep at all from the time I got home at 5:30 till we went to bed at 10. In that time we played and trained almost the entire time. When we werent he was focusing on a kong or a beef kneecap I got him the other day.


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## mommaofalot (Apr 10, 2014)

I'm just going to leave this here haha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IBzXu21Z5o


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

Ran him ragged last night. I had him in the yard, then our daughter. Then inside for tug and fetch. Then training more fetch and tug. He put himself to bed under our bed about 10. Little bugger was up at 4:30. Left him there, as he was quiet and in and out of sleep or at least pretty still till about 5:15. Can't wait for our guy to sleep in


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## jjohnson (Nov 9, 2011)

Well, I have a 1 1/2 year old toddler that won't sleep past 4:30 am these days, so if you find something that works, let me know and maybe it will work for the kid too...


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Daul77 said:


> Can't wait for our guy to sleep in


Haha I'm still waiting  As long as he's content to chew on his kongs, etc. until a reasonable hour (6 am, lol) I'm happy!


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

> As long as he's content to chew on his kongs, etc. until a reasonable hour (6 am, lol) I'm happy!


I would be too! You make his kong the night before and give it to him in the morning? I usually give him his favorite stuffed animal and a kong goody bone with jerky in it. However when I did that he was up at 3


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Lol. We put a Kong or two in with him at night and they are always gone in the morning! We usually put in frozen ones with a touch of fresh PB on the end. He doesn't really like them frozen, so he licks the fresh PB off as he falls asleep. And then at some point during the night or in the morning, he finishes them off. He'd probably stay up late to work on a jerky bone or something that yummy though, the Kongs we give him at night are pretty "boring" I'd say. He often doesn't eat a lot, so I like to make sure he has a good snack if he gets hungry later from skipping dinner. There is also something really soothing to him about licking the PB. I notice if I don't do a Kong with PB, he is a lot less likely to settle and go to sleep quickly. It's definitely part of his settling routine.

I'm curious as to whether he actually sleeps through the night or if he wakes up to eat/play. His crate is in the living room. The couple times we've let him sleep in bed with us, he wakes up around midnight and gets booted back to the crate (for trying to play and chew on the duvet). We also hear him drink a lot in the middle of the night and I'm never sure if it's because he's eating/chewing or he just woke up because he was thirsty. Usually as long as he's got something to keep him busy in the morning, he's good about waiting until 6 (his usual wake up time) to cry. Unfortunately, that means we're up at 6 on the weekends though


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Haha this isn't recommended, but what else really keeps him busy is chewing the old t-shirts in his crate. We put them in there when we were crate training (with our scent on there) and he's always chewed them a bit and spit out the pieces. We tried taking the t-shirts out, but then he started chewing and de-stuffing his bed instead. So we let him keep the t-shirts since he spits out what he chews off. If we're late waking him up, you can tell he's been waiting because he'll have a nice little pile of t-shirt pieces in his crate with him.


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

> I'm curious as to whether he actually sleeps through the night or if he wakes up to eat/play. His crate is in the living room. The couple times we've let him sleep in bed with us, he wakes up around midnight and gets booted back to the crate (for trying to play and chew on the duvet).


That is to funny. I'm sure Tucker would so the same, but his momma won't let him sleep in the bed with us. Which is probably a good thing. Do you just stuff his night kongs with PB? Or do you put some kibble in it too?


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Haha yeah, he's technically not allowed in bed either, but he gets permission every once in a while if he's been especially good that day or it's a holiday. And he doesn't get upset when we eventually crate him. He has yet to make it through a whole night though, because he always wants to play in the middle of the night. It definitely keeps us from caving and making it an every night thing! We try letting him in to snuggle on weekend mornings, but the same thing happens.

We do a mix of kibble, cookies and PB at night. I usually fill about halfway with kibble, put a layer of PB, maybe wedge part of a large cookie in there (Medium size milkbones can be broken down to a good size, or Kong ziggie sticks), more kibble, maybe another big cookie, then a layer of PB. If I freeze it, I just top it with one more layer of fresh PB before he gets it. So nothing too creative  But I layer the PB so he can't get all the kibble out at once. He actually isn't that crazy for PB (probably because he gets it often) so he'd totally ignore a Kong if it was all PB.


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## aliciavp (Mar 14, 2014)

Im having a similar issue at the moment. I think Lazlo is teething, if that makes a difference... but he'll be on the couch, chewing on something (usually an annoyingly loud toy), get to the point where his eyes droop and he really should just nod off... instead the little bugger fights it by getting off the couch, walking around a bit, finding another annoyingly loud toy to bring onto the couch... and the process repeats itself until we literally place him in his crate (which he tries to get out of) when it's our bedtime! ARGH!


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

Oh the joys of puppyhood. Not sure if I'm on to something but over the weekend he napped pretty normally. But yesterday when my wife and I were at work Tucker was kenneled like normal. She got home at 3:30 and he was on the go till 9:00 at night. Not one nap. And that was with her playing with him till I got home at 5:30. Then I played with him and we both did training with him then played more. A lot of that was out in the yard bouncing around chasing toys and romping around. We noticed this behavior started last work week. I hope this isn't a regular occurance because 5 hours of solid play and training is insane.


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## dextersmom (Oct 29, 2013)

Daul77 said:


> I hope this isn't a regular occurrence because 5 hours of solid play and training is insane.


Oh, I wouldn't worry - even now Dexter won't stay awake for that long without a nap if he's at home. He naps every 2-3 hours usually. He does fight sleep too though, which is super annoying. Last week after daycare (11+ hours of straight playing) he refused to sleep for some reason. Sometimes I'll just crate him (he'll fall asleep almost immediately) and let him out after 15 minutes and he'll continue his nap outside of the crate.


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## daul77 (Jan 22, 2014)

I crated Tucker at about 7 last night so we could eat supper and he whined a bit cause we were home and he was in his kennel. He settled down and made his tired, I'm going to sleep groaning noises but every time I peeked at him he was awake. After supper I just let him out and he was calm for about half hour and chewesd his bully stick then right back to full on play mode. I'm not sure if he is so wound up from "sleeping" in his kennel all day or what but he was the same way a couple days last work week also. Friday we took him to puppy play group at 6 till 7:15. He slept in the car on the way home then curled up in his kennel for about 30 min. When he does nap it's usually not for long. I hope I don't have a super hyper Vizsla. I picked the even keeled pup from the litter. I just think at 10 weeks old he should be sleeping more. Unless that's all he does in his kennel while we work?

Edit. Forgot to mention I do go home for lunch and spend about 35 -40 min in the yard romping and throwing toys with him.


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