Won't sleep through the night
 

I have two Yorkies, 5 and 7 years old. From the beginning they have not slept through the night. I know part of it is I'm not able to ignore the whining, so I am reinforcing their behavior by letting them out a couple times during the night. I'm curious as to what other people do to have their Yorkies sleep through the night. ?? Most importantly, I'm wondering if you pick up their food and/or water at a certain time. ?? P.S. I realize the importance of them getting exercise during the day, and they DO get that exercise...but are STILL getting me up at night. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

We are brand new Yorkie (Poo) owners, so our experience is recent. Sugar Bear whines around 5am or 6am and I do get up then to take her out. It is a new experience for us to have a small dog (who cannot just head for the doggy door whenever she wants). Humans need to go after sleeping all night, whether the urge wakes us at 5, 6 , or not until the alarm goes off ;) so I decided that it's only reasonable to take her out if she whines even if I want to sleep longer because if I woke up and needed to go . . . I would not want to wait until my owner decided it was time to get up :). I take her out, but put her right back in the kitchen and tell her it is still time to sleep. If she whines after that (or when we close off the kitchen at night), I ignore it. She does have a habit of starting up again an hour or two later, but I know that is because she is ready to get her day started, not a need to pee. In that, she's training us a little to start our day a little earlier, at least Mon-Fri. On weekends, I have been letting her out of the kitchen and going back to bed at the second (too earlier for me) whine, after putting on the golf channel. It's a risk that she might have an accident, but I'm pretty confident that once she's done her early morning business, we're good until after breakfast. She is on a regular feeding/pooping schedule. We started bell training with the 'Tell Bell' this week, so hopefully by June or so she will have a way to identify when she really needs to go out.

Hi, welcome to Yorkie Talk:)
I haven't had a problem at all with my Yorkie doing this and she has never made a mess in her crate either(she's 6 months old) but our Akita would cry once during the night needing to go out when she was a puppy, but once she was old enough to hold it all night long, she stopped.

Have you had your dogs since they were puppies? I'd take their water and food up about 2 hours before bed time, make sure they've had a drink recently first though. Are you feeding them on a schedual or do they free feed? When they go out, do they both pee or poop or both? I'd also make sure that a trip outside to the "potty" is pretty much the last thing you do before you go to bed. As adults, there's no reason they can't hold it all night long unless there's a medical condition. They probably want your attention more than actually NEEDING to go to the bathroom.

I'd ignore them or tell them "no" when they start crying. You shouldn't have to be getting up a few times in the night for an adult dog to go potty.

I had a problem with Pixie waking me up at 2 or 3 am every night to eat. She got into the habit because my pom (RIP) had Cushing's and would wake up at that time to eat and go out. Pixie has been doing this for 4 years. No matter how much I tried ignoring her she would drive me crazy until I gave in. Finally about 3 months ago I decided I had to turn her around. I give them all a small meal at 10 pm now and she lets me sleep most nights until 6 or 7 am. Good luck I know how frustrating it is and how hard it is to turn them around.