Hi, there.

My wife and I had decided that we were going to get a dog, a puppy. We are
both dog people, but in this case our youngest -- who has a dog at my wife's
ex-husband's home -- has been talking incessantly about a dog. The last puppy
I had was in a previous marriage, 8 years ago, so I'm a little rusty. We had
hoped to have some time to research things more, but last week we were the
victims of a "drive-by dogging" and ended up with a little mixed-breed bitch.

The problem: she cries quite a bit in the middle of the night. We live in a
small house, so it's not easy to segregate her where we won't hear her. She's
waking up about once every 45 minutes to 90 minutes, crying in her crate. At
first we had it in a different room, but she woke up and was very, very loud,
waking up all of us. We moved it into our room where she knows where we are,
but it just means that the quieter cries are much closer to us. I've been
getting up with her, but it's really taking its toll on both of us. This is
our second week with her (and due to an unfortunate bit of timing, she had to
be boarded at the vet's over the weekend; not a bad thing, really, as they
were able to deworm her and fix up some other problems), and so far neither of
us have had much of a good night's sleep.

I realize she doesn't have any bladder control, so getting up to let her out
isn't a big deal. The problem is that I think half the time she is just not
tired enough, and the last time she wakes up it's obvious she just wants to
play.

Can anyone give us suggestions, other than just persevering? I know if we let
her out of her crate and let her sleep on the bed, she'd get us up to go
outside and not much more than that, but that means we'd have to let her sleep
in the bed with us for the rest of her life! We don't want to go there. I plan
to try something tonight, taking her for a long walk before we go to bed,
which should help.

Anyone have some suggestions? Any help would be appreciated.

Allan Goodall
http://www.hyperbear.com

"The only normal people are the ones you don't know
well!" - Joe Ancis