# Ep 80 How to Stop Your Dog or Puppy Waking You At Night

An episode of [Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1721245241), 11 Jun 2025, 18 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2287608/episodes/17274238-ep-80-how-to-stop-your-dog-or-puppy-waking-you-at-night.mp3

Do you have a dog that just won’t settle at night? Whether you’ve got a puppy who’s crying through the night or an older dog who keeps waking you up at 3am, this episode is packed with ideas to help you (finally) get some rest. We’re looking at why dogs of all ages can struggle to sleep through the night and what you can do to gently guide them toward peaceful slumber. If you’ve ever found yourself stuck sleeping on the sofa or forgetting random things due to sleep deprivation, this one’s for you. We talk about strategies tailored to your dogs’ age, habits and needs and dive into how to set your puppy up for sleep success. Tune in for practical, realistic steps to finally get that good night’s sleep! ................ Whether your dog is unpredictable with other dogs or predictably bad… Whether it looks like freezing, barking, lunging or running away… Whether you are just starting out on your dog-owning journey or your dog has been labelled as having a “behaviour problem”… … this episode is for you and is going to give you huge insights! Want to join the Help! My Dog Online HUB? Here's the link: www.helpmydog.com/hub Dr Tom Mitchell is a world-renowned veterinarian, behaviourist and dog trainer and director of the Behavet behaviour clinic (rated Excellent on Trustpilot), which sees over 400 pet behaviour consultations each and every month no matter where you are in the world. In 2023, he founded Help! My Dog, an online dog behaviour learning platform to help even more owners all over the world and show that dog behaviour transformation is not only possible but it's FUN, with the right know-how! Make sure to subscribe/follow the podcast for the free weekly episodes! Useful Links: Follow Help! My Dog on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmydogofficial/ Schedule a Consultation with Behavet: https://www.beha.vet/ Follow Behavet on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/behavet

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_01: I got up at 5 a.m.
[0:02] SPEAKER_01: and I was like, I'll just make myself a coffee.
[0:05] SPEAKER_01: And I looked in the sink and I found my house keys and my car keys in the sink covered in water.
[0:12] SPEAKER_01: So at some point in the night, I had actually washed my keys in the kitchen sink.
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, a warning.
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners.
[0:25] SPEAKER_00: This is real life, and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic.
[0:30] SPEAKER_00: So listen on at your own peril.
[0:33] SPEAKER_00: As a veterinarian, dog behaviourist, best-selling author and trainer over the past decade, I've had an obsession with transforming the behaviour of dogs.
[0:42] SPEAKER_00: Understanding their brains and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home.
[0:48] SPEAKER_00: I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality.
[0:54] SPEAKER_00: In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog Gorse was bitten by a dog 20 times her size.
[1:01] SPEAKER_01: And suddenly our life of stress-free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner.
[1:12] SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
[1:13] SPEAKER_00: Tom.
[1:13] SPEAKER_00: This is the Help My Dog Podcast, and this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you and having a few laughs along the way.
[1:24] SPEAKER_01: Hello, HMD family.
[1:26] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this episode of the Help My Dog Podcast.
[1:29] SPEAKER_01: And this episode's learning has been guided by a listener who is basically really struggling because they've got a dog that is waking up in the night.
[1:41] SPEAKER_01: And they're a young dog, I say they're a young dog, they're an adolescent dog, nine months old.
[1:46] SPEAKER_01: And I thought, actually, this is um this is probably a worthwhile topic for people who have puppies, people who have adolescent dogs, people who have adult dogs.
[1:57] SPEAKER_01: You know, we see sometimes dogs in the behavior clinic um that uh that have their kind of primary behavior struggle is that they wake up in the night and maybe they're reactive to things in the night, um, or they're just waking up and their owners are not sleeping.
[2:14] SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, and you know, there's been you know situations of um owners like having to sleep on the sofa for years because um the dog won't be separated and they won't be calm in the bedroom, and so um, you know, it's it's really quite a serious, um, serious struggle.
[2:32] SPEAKER_01: Um, and I can definitely relate to it at the moment because um uh baby Delphine, as in human baby, as in skin baby rather than fur baby, um it people hate it when I say that, but it just makes me want to say it more.
[2:45] SPEAKER_01: Um she has um she's definitely not keen on the old sleep.
[2:50] SPEAKER_01: Um and so last night I was I was up uh I was up 11:30, 2:30, and 5am.
[3:00] SPEAKER_01: And basically at 5am, you're just up.
[3:02] SPEAKER_01: There is no there's no like resettling at that point.
[3:06] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so um so it can definitely relate to how challenging this is, and I can also relate to the fact that when we're sleep deprived, we don't make the best decisions.
[3:16] SPEAKER_01: And so to have an episode of the podcast where it's like, right, here is the plan, here are the things to consider, I thought that would be a really useful resource.
[3:24] SPEAKER_01: Um, in fact, funny one actually, I've only just um remembered that this happened.
[3:29] SPEAKER_01: I I got up um at 5 a.m.
[3:31] SPEAKER_01: and I was like, I'll just make myself a coffee.
[3:34] SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh I looked in the sink and I found my um house keys and my car keys in the sink covered in water.
[3:41] SPEAKER_01: So at some point in the night I had actually washed my keys in the kitchen sink.
[3:47] SPEAKER_01: I don't remember doing it, don't know why I did it, but it just shows that you uh you know you don't make always the most like sensible, um sensible uh decisions, also.
[3:57] SPEAKER_01: Um got up one morning a week ago and found a baby grow in the toilet.
[4:02] SPEAKER_01: Um so um I can relate.
[4:06] SPEAKER_01: So what to think about?
[4:08] SPEAKER_01: Well, let's let's kind of I'm gonna talk about the various strategies, and you don't have to do all the strategies, but um, some strategies will be more appropriate for some of you than others, and and some will be more appropriate potentially for certain age groups.
[4:24] SPEAKER_01: So, like the first one that I'm gonna do is very typical of of what we might do with with puppies to get them used to being happy, sleeping through and and um sleeping through and independently.
[4:36] SPEAKER_01: So first one is to have them close and let them know that you are there often, okay?
[4:43] SPEAKER_01: So um I am a big advocate for um helping dogs to settle overnight by them having some form of containment.
[4:53] SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean a crate if you don't think that cages and crates are appropriate for you, but some form of like limiting what mischief they can get up to really helps them to understand this is about sleep and about being calm.
[5:08] SPEAKER_01: And so a typical example of what I might suggest for a new puppy, you're gonna think they've they've come from potentially, you know, five, six, seven, eight siblings and their mum right there, to suddenly we're expecting them to sleep in the kitchen by themselves overnight.
[5:25] SPEAKER_01: Totally unrealistic, right?
[5:26] SPEAKER_01: They're a family living species, yeah?
[5:28] SPEAKER_01: It's just as unrealistic to expect a newborn baby to do that, right?
[5:32] SPEAKER_01: Newborn babies, they're not aware that they are a separate person to their mum.
[5:37] SPEAKER_01: They think that they're meant to be attached.
[5:39] SPEAKER_01: And it's not dissimilar with puppies in that they've been part of that little family group and now suddenly there's all this change.
[5:46] SPEAKER_01: And so um, having them um in a crate or a cage or a puppy pen or whatever next to your bed means a couple of things.
[5:56] SPEAKER_01: First of all, they're with you.
[5:58] SPEAKER_01: Second, it's very clear that it's about calmness because they're contained.
[6:02] SPEAKER_01: Third, you can pop your hand onto them or onto the bars or through the bars to kind of remind them that you're there and support them.
[6:12] SPEAKER_01: Um, third, or fourth, I don't know what I'm on, um, is that you now have a way of making them mobile.
[6:19] SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
[6:19] SPEAKER_01: So what you do is you get them to rehearse because sleeping through the night is all about rehearsal.
[6:24] SPEAKER_01: The more they sleep, the more they will sleep, right?
[6:28] SPEAKER_01: Um what you do is you get them to rehearse, sleeping as much as possible next to you.
[6:33] SPEAKER_01: And then when they're really good at that, you can start to inch, move that crate away.
[6:38] SPEAKER_01: Maybe it can then be in the hallway, maybe it can then be at the top of the stairs, maybe it can then be downstairs.
[6:44] SPEAKER_01: Now you can do it the other way, in that you can go and sleep with your dog on the floor or on the sofa in the the goal destination.
[6:52] SPEAKER_01: If you have a goal destination.
[6:54] SPEAKER_01: I like my bed, right?
[6:57] SPEAKER_01: And so I do it the other way.
[6:58] SPEAKER_01: You I because you you inching away from your dog, like sleeping on the stairs, it's not as practical as just moving a crate away from you over time.
[7:07] SPEAKER_01: And so that can be, you know, great for new dogs, as in new puppies, new, new, new dogs to you.
[7:14] SPEAKER_01: Um, but also it can be you it can be a fine reminder.
[7:18] SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes people think, oh no, I'm going back 10 steps by by revisiting that when my dog's nine, 10, 18 months old, five years old.
[7:28] SPEAKER_01: The reality is, is you're going back steps every time your dog rehearses, not sleeping through the night.
[7:34] SPEAKER_01: So the only way to make progress is to set up a situation in which they sleep better.
[7:39] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[7:39] SPEAKER_01: And it might just be 1% better, right?
[7:42] SPEAKER_01: There's this big misconception that you should keep them awake throughout the day so they sleep through the night.
[7:48] SPEAKER_01: And this applies to babies and dogs.
[7:50] SPEAKER_01: The reality is the more they practice sleeping, the more they will sleep.
[7:54] SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
[7:54] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so the that is what we want to achieve.
[7:59] SPEAKER_01: Um, now, second thing that, because it leads nicely onto that, is that you might think the best thing to do to get them to sleep through the night is to have a very high arousal, high excitement day.
[8:08] SPEAKER_01: Exercise them more.
[8:10] SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, what that does is upregulates their stress hormones, upregulates their arousal, their basal arousal, the arousal that they deem to be appropriate for life.
[8:20] SPEAKER_01: Um and so they actually will find it potentially harder to sleep through the night because they've got all of this cortisol that they've got to like put a lid on um throughout the night.
[8:29] SPEAKER_01: And so instead, what I'd be thinking about is how can I make every hour of the day scream calmness to my dog?
[8:36] SPEAKER_01: How can I make every hour of the day scream sleep to my dog or whisper sleep to my dog, right?
[8:42] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that would be the second, um, the second tip that I would um think about.
[8:48] SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, I just want to take a moment to answer a question that has been coming in in literally 10 emails today, and that is how can we help you with your dog's behavior struggle, whether that be reactivity, separation, anxiety, resource guarding, maybe you've got multi-dog household struggle right now, maybe your dog's just so overaroused on a walk that they just can't listen to you and they're chasing everything inside.
[9:11] SPEAKER_01: Like, can I get Tom's help?
[9:13] SPEAKER_00: Um, and the answer is that actually you can, and you can do that by booking a behaviour vet behavior consultation.
[9:21] SPEAKER_01: That's where literally my team give you the plan on how to transform your struggle and get you to that dream that that made you get a dog in the first place, right?
[9:31] SPEAKER_01: Your world's got smaller and smaller and smaller, and actually it doesn't need to be that way.
[9:35] SPEAKER_00: You just need to reach out for help.
[9:37] SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of things to say on that.
[9:39] SPEAKER_00: First of all, if you're insured, if your dog's insured with Pet Plan, Kennel Club, Agria, or many pets, we actually do direct claims with them, which means that that's covered by your insurance.
[9:49] SPEAKER_01: So you don't you don't pay out of your pocket, your insurance covers that.
[9:54] SPEAKER_01: And the second thing to say is that we have loads of options if you're insured with another provider, or if your dog's not insured at all, that's also totally fine.
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: We have loads of options that we've developed to make this so accessible for you.
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: Um because we're aware that you've already invested a load of time and a load of money in getting your dog, looking after your dog, caring for your dog.
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: But the last thing we want is for you to have done all that and still not be living the life that you deserve with your dog.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: And we know we can get you there.
[10:19] SPEAKER_01: So all you need to do is go to the Behave Vet website, and the way to do that is go B-E-H A.V-E-T.
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: That's behet, and it will take you there.
[10:33] SPEAKER_01: Or just Google Behave Vet, right?
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can get scheduled in and we can literally get you booked in for a consultation as soon as possible.
[10:42] SPEAKER_01: We normally can accommodate it within a week, right?
[10:44] SPEAKER_01: So that you can be getting to your dream ASAP.
[10:47] SPEAKER_01: Next thing that I would think about is um obviously, especially if you've got a young dog, it might be that they need to go to the toilet in the night.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:56] SPEAKER_01: Um, and if they do need to go to the toilet in the night, you need to make that as non-event as possible.
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: My tips for that are open the cage door, pop them on lead in the cage, lead them out, lead them out to the garden, and almost act as a bit of a statue in the garden, right?
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: And just let them sniff by your feet until eventually they go to the toilet, then lead them back into their crate.
[11:22] SPEAKER_01: Um, and um ideally then just get back into bed and pop your hand on the pop your hand on the crate, okay?
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: So you're trying to make it as non-event as possible.
[11:32] SPEAKER_01: There is no harm, if needed, to use some kind of transition activity.
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: So giving them a very, you know, ideally as low value as possible, long-lasting chew for them to sort of gnaw on to then just gently, you know, transition back to calmness, okay?
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: Um, but the key is that we need to make this as non-event as possible, no matter how cute they are, yeah, as non-event as possible, as silent and as calm and as screaming calmness as possible.
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: Um now, once you've done that and you've done all of those things, it might be that your dog still wakes up at a particular time.
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: And it's very common for this to happen, especially in the dogs that we see that are older, that we see for behavior consultation, it's often a specific time of day where they might wake, sorry, specific time of night where they might wake up.
[12:21] SPEAKER_01: That might be 3 a.m., that might be 4 a.m., right?
[12:26] SPEAKER_01: Um and what can happen is you get into this cycle of hoping that it's not gonna happen.
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you get into this cycle of trying to reverse engineer, okay, well, maybe it's because we did this that it happened today.
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: And trust me, I know this because I've been wasting my time trying to do this with with Delphine, right?
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, it's because, you know, if she's in the sling after 4 p.m., then she wakes up an extra one time.
[12:52] SPEAKER_01: And I I you get all these theories, and then you're like, no, that is not it.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's actually just a full moon, right?
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so um the you know, the the key here, guys, is just don't waste your energy trying to like figure out some like uh um reason as to why that might be.
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: You know, the more tired you get, the more you slip into um what's called magical thinking.
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: Um, and this is this is a common one just throughout life, but especially when you're sleep deprived, and especially when you're trying to resolve sleep struggles in whatever species, magical thinking is making completely unrelated events related in some way, yeah.
[13:35] SPEAKER_01: So for example, um when when people are superstitious, that's like magical thinking, yeah.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, ooh, don't mention the bad thing because then the bad thing's more likely to happen.
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: No, you you mentioning it is completely independent from whether the thing happens or not, yeah?
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: And you start to almost like connect different things together, but actually there's no logical reason why those things would be, why those things would be connected.
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: You know, the full moon example, right?
[14:04] SPEAKER_01: Um, and I get that there are some you know potential reasons why a full moon might influence the behavior of animals, but that's another story altogether.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's another episode.
[14:13] SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, we need to be careful of how we spend our energy because we've got limited energy in these times.
[14:19] SPEAKER_01: So, what you are gonna do if your dog wakes up at a specific time every night and typically they go to the toilet um at that time, if it's 3 a.m., yeah, or if it tends to be sometimes it's 2.30, sometimes it's three, sometimes it's 3.30, sometimes it's 3.15, you're gonna pick the earlier time, so 2.30 in the example that I give gave you there, and you're gonna go back 20 minutes, so 10 past 2 a.m., right?
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna set a very quiet alarm, yeah, ideally a vibration alarm, for you to wake up at 10 past two, right?
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: And what you're gonna do at 10 past two is you are going to you are going to uh wake them up very gently.
[15:02] SPEAKER_01: You're gonna pop them on lead, you're gonna take them out to the toilet if they tend to go to the toilet at that time, right?
[15:07] SPEAKER_01: If they don't tend to go to the toilet at that time, they've just got this weird like cortisol spike at that time, you're gonna gently pop them on lead, take them out to the toilet, check they don't need to go to the toilet, pop them away with a long-lasting tube.
[15:19] SPEAKER_01: The point is, is we're this is a game of rehearsal.
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: The more they rehearse, waking up themselves and then, you know, escalating, right?
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: The more likely they will do that in the future.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: We can break the cycle, weirdly, by us waking them up in a very calm, gentle way, yeah, and just checking that their needs are met.
[15:41] SPEAKER_01: What you then do, obviously we're at 10 past two now, you might need to do that five days, right?
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: And you might be like, oh my god, this sounds so painful.
[15:47] SPEAKER_01: It's even more painful getting woken up randomly and sporadically, right?
[15:52] SPEAKER_01: If you know you've got to just, you know, be awake for 20 minutes at 10 past two, that's much nicer than being in this like lovely deep sleep and then hearing, hearing the cry.
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's like, oh, maybe I didn't hear it, right?
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: That's magical thinking.
[16:06] SPEAKER_01: Like, maybe my ears deceive me.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: If I pretend I didn't hear it, it's less likely to, it's less likely to continue.
[16:13] SPEAKER_01: Great example of magical thinking.
[16:15] SPEAKER_01: Um, and so um this is it actually will feel better, I promise.
[16:19] SPEAKER_01: But then what you do is you start to push that time forward.
[16:23] SPEAKER_01: So you start to say, okay, I've done that for five days.
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna try and go to quarter to three.
[16:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, brilliant, done that for a few days.
[16:30] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go to 4 a.m.
[16:32] SPEAKER_01: Brilliant, done that for a few days.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go to 5 a.m.
[16:35] SPEAKER_01: Brilliant, done that for a few days.
[16:37] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go to 7 a.m.
[16:38] SPEAKER_01: And I've made it through the night, and now we've broken that rehearsal cycle, okay?
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: Um now the final thing that I would say is sometimes our dog's sleep gets broken by other situations, other things happening, right?
[16:51] SPEAKER_01: Maybe they have separation struggles, and you know, you that would be an area to work on.
[16:57] SPEAKER_01: Maybe they are reacting to something in the environment, right?
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: That again will be something to work on.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: They're almost like separate plans.
[17:04] SPEAKER_01: That's where the broken sleep is a symptom rather than like the primary thing that's happened.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: But sometimes it can be a primary, primary problem where they've just got into a rehearsal cycle of just waking up at that time and their neurotransmitters, their stress hormone has just decided to upregulate at that time because these things are these animals are creatures of efficiency.
[17:23] SPEAKER_01: So their brain will adapt to what they are practicing.
[17:26] SPEAKER_01: The more they practice it, the more they will do it because the more their brain is adapting.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: So the secret is to break the rehearsal, and these tips will achieve that.
[17:33] SPEAKER_01: Now remember, Mrs.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: Cringe is on maternity leave.
[17:36] SPEAKER_01: And so that means there's no cringe stories for the next couple of weeks, but they will return soon.
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: Uh, and in the meantime, I'll keep trying to like overload you with as much value as possible to make sure that you unlock the most amazing relationship with your dog.
[17:48] SPEAKER_01: And I will see you next week.

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