Should I leave my puppy downstairs at night?
On the first night your puppy comes home, it is best to let him sleep in your room as your house is a whole new world for him and he will need comfort and attention, at least for a few days.
Young puppies tend to wake up crying during the night, so it would be good for you to be nearby.
Another reason not to leave them downstairs alone is that puppies won’t be able to sleep through the night without needing to go out and relieve their bladder.
You may choose to crate train your dog, but it will take a few days for your pup to accept it. Be prepared for some whinging at first.
Puppies love routine, so introducing them to a night-time routine as soon as you can is a good idea. You’ll want to set a time when you take your pup out to do his business and a time when you go to bed. Try not to deviate from this, so make your usual bedtime your puppy’s bedtime too.
Should my puppy sleep in my room?
When they bring a puppy home, some people think that the best thing to do is to shut him in the kitchen at night and leave him to cry so that he gets used to sleeping alone. That used to be advice imparted to most prospective dog owners.
But is that advice valid anymore? If it’s not, where is the best place for a puppy to sleep?
The advice nowadays is a little different. Your dog is not crying at night just to get your attention, he is crying because he is scared. He has been taken from everything familiar to him and thrust into a new foreign environment and is expected to cope.
To help minimise the stress your adorable little puppy experiences, you should let him sleep in your room to begin with, perhaps in a crate next to your bed. This is also convenient for taking your pup out for potty breaks in the middle of the night.
As he grows older, your dog can choose where he wants to sleep, if you have more than one dog bed in the house. You should not let puppies roam around the house at night unsupervised. When he is trained and a little older you may think about letting them have free reign, if you have made the house safe for them.
One of the best beds out there for a Cavapoo is the Bed Sure Orthopaedic dog bed, which is extremely comfortable and will suit almost any age and size of dog. It helps protects your dogs spine and joints and has a water proof liner. There are loads of cheaper options but this is real quality and will outlast any cheaper option.
Next, we’ll talk about whether it is cruel to let a dog sleep alone at night.
Not much dog hair upstairs!
Shedding is a normal thing for every dog once in a while.
But cleaning them can be stressful for some people. So training your dog to sleep downstairs will reduce this mountain of dog hair that accumulates upstairs. This will cut down on cleaning.
How To Stop Puppy Crying At Night
The very first few nights with a new puppy can be a daunting experience for both the puppy and you as a new owner wanting to do the very best for your dog and to give them an emotionally and physically secure start.
From the puppy’s perspective, leaving the litter and coming into a strange environment can be a traumatic experience, but over the coming days and nights a puppy will quickly adjust to its new surroundings in the knowledge that all its needs are being met in the new home, such as food, warmth, play and the bond that is being created with the new family.
The essence of the video I have created on this subject looks at ways in which we can create a positive environment for the puppy to sleep at night and for the owner to get a good night’s rest in readiness to do the puppy routine all over again the following day. It’s fair to say that many of the calls or emails I receive from new puppy owners are for this particular problem (a puppy that isn’t sleeping well at night) and that with a few tweaks it can usually be resolved over a period of time.
So to elaborate a little, we have a puppy that is with you throughout the day and naturally will want to keep you in its sights and to watch the comings and goings, and then at night the puppy is placed in the crate and has to cope with alone, whilst in darkness. Your puppy may have a different idea as to what should happen at night!
A puppy can be surprisingly noisy in these first few nights and can quickly lead to the owner becoming sleep deprived. This, in turn, can lead to desperation and the owner may inevitably find that the pup will quickly settle as soon as it is in the bedroom with the owner, or another common response from desperate owners is to go downstairs and to sleep alongside the puppy on the sofa or camp bed. Whilst I accept that this is placating the puppy and that the pup can sleep and so can the owner, this is not addressing the issue, which is getting the puppy to learn to sleep alone in a dark, quiet room. Tackling this issue now when the puppy is more open to new experiences, will be a great deal easier than addressing it later.