I think our foster is slowly driving us insane. We've had Tigger for two weeks now and we're definitely getting more sleep-deprived. Let me start from the beginning. Tigger is an extremely cute 65-lb black lab puppy. He's only about 1.5 years old and he's still VERY much a puppy. After Jazzy and Digger, two of the most mellow fosters we've had, it just seems so much worse.
He was at his previous foster home for 4 mos, so he's been having transition issues for the first week, lots of pacing, whining, squeaking, panting. Plus the foster home usually gets up around 5am so I think he's used to early morning hours. It took us about a week to figure out the best way to let him sleep at night. Originally we tried just leaving him loose in the bedroom, but he spent the nights pacing, whining, jumping on the bed, jumping on the couch, then having to potty at 4am. After two nights of that, we tried crating him downstairs in the family room. Unfortunately everytime he heard movement in the bedroom (doesn't help that I was sick and coughing all night), he'd bark for a few minutes everytime. Next step was crating him in our bedroom. That seemed to hit it off with Tigger and we were able to sleep through the night finally....until 4:30am. At that point, he'd wake up and starting whining because he really really needed to go potty. We've tried restricting water after 7pm, but that still didn't work. So currently he's crated at night and still wakes us up anywhere between 3am-6am every morning.
Last weekend, we took him to the dog park and he seemed to really enjoy it. It also appeared to wear him out, so on Sunday we took him back to the dog park and resolved to keep him awake all day. Hopefully that would mean he'd sleep through the whole night. The poor dear, we'd start talking to him and petting him when he got sleepy, so he spent the whole day in a half-dozed state. The good news is that he was extremely mellow the entire day, the bad news is he still woke us up really early the next morning.
He was at his previous foster home for 4 mos, so he's been having transition issues for the first week, lots of pacing, whining, squeaking, panting. Plus the foster home usually gets up around 5am so I think he's used to early morning hours. It took us about a week to figure out the best way to let him sleep at night. Originally we tried just leaving him loose in the bedroom, but he spent the nights pacing, whining, jumping on the bed, jumping on the couch, then having to potty at 4am. After two nights of that, we tried crating him downstairs in the family room. Unfortunately everytime he heard movement in the bedroom (doesn't help that I was sick and coughing all night), he'd bark for a few minutes everytime. Next step was crating him in our bedroom. That seemed to hit it off with Tigger and we were able to sleep through the night finally....until 4:30am. At that point, he'd wake up and starting whining because he really really needed to go potty. We've tried restricting water after 7pm, but that still didn't work. So currently he's crated at night and still wakes us up anywhere between 3am-6am every morning.
Last weekend, we took him to the dog park and he seemed to really enjoy it. It also appeared to wear him out, so on Sunday we took him back to the dog park and resolved to keep him awake all day. Hopefully that would mean he'd sleep through the whole night. The poor dear, we'd start talking to him and petting him when he got sleepy, so he spent the whole day in a half-dozed state. The good news is that he was extremely mellow the entire day, the bad news is he still woke us up really early the next morning.
Comments