We didn't keep our babygirl locked up in a crate all day and most people don't. That would be too confining. These are live, very lively little creatures afterall, and instinctively they need a lot, and I mean a LOT of exercise and stimulation. They are very energetic critters. Otherwise, without enough exercise and too much confinement, you're going to have a puppy who has basically given up and goes into depression or becomes neurotic.
I think your puppy is very smart as most of them are, and is very conscious of the fact that he is being deprived of freedom for prolongued periods throughout the day and your puppy also quite naturally shows it's disappointment at being put back into the crate for another prolongued period after each relatively brief period of freedom. And you can't really blame an intelligent, very energetic little creature for that. That's like imprisonment for you and me, and I can see that having only brief periods of freedom would set your puppy up to protest having to be locked up all night long as well. Our puppy was out of her crate most of the day, so she was tired by the time bedtime rolled around and slept all night from the first night on. If your puppy hasn't had enough stimulation and exercise throught the day and has had too long periods of confinement, then it's not going to be tired enough to sleep through the night.
What we did was to buy one of those pens that is about 36"-48" around. Ours is called a "Small Animal Pen" which has no bottom on it. We have it in the living room with all her toys in it and crunchies and water. We also have her crate which she sleeps in inside the pen.
Even at that, we didn't keep her in it all day. She had her leash on all day (that was a must because we could grab the leash as soon as she showed signs of going potty off her potty pad) and my husband is home all day, so she was out of the pen most of the time. So we never had a problem getting her to sleep during the night. He kept an eye on her and basically, we just watched for the signs that she had to go pee or poo. We followed what the trainers said and paid particular attention to her whenever she ate or drank, had played with us for quite a while, and when she woke up from a nap or in the morning after she'd slept in her crate during the night.
When we watched for those particular times as listed above, she was very predictable. She always went pee after a nap and usually after a drink of water, and went poo in the mornng first thing after peeing, and in the evening sometime between 6 and 9. The signs that she had to poo were that she would walk around the living room in circles for a while sniffing the whole time. There were occasional accidents, which we just ignored and cleaned up, but everytime, and I mean every single time she went on her potty pad, we gave her lots of praise and a treat. Even if we didn't notice it immediately, we would make a big deal out of it and give her a treat.
These little critters are very very smart and they pick up on things really quickly. They particularly pick up on what it takes to get a treat. Rewards are really big with them as far as a teaching tool. So use treats everytime they do something right and just ignore when they do something wrong. Since they are so quick to pick up on treats, they learn things really fast this way. Give treats for any behavior that is even close to what you want them to achieve. They will work harder each time to do an even better job. |