Hello everyone my girlfriend and I are in desperate need of some expertise. We have a 3 month old German Shepherd that we got at 8 weeks from a breeder, and he has been amazing at everything, EXCEPT sleeping at night. Currently we are crating him in the plastic kennel, we leave it right next to our bed. Its a perfect size for him, he has plenty of space, but not enough room to go to the bathroom and still have a clean space. We also have the standard wire style crate as well. We may switch to that depending on the responses we get here.
My girlfriend and I are running very thin on patience. We've literally averaged 3-4 hours of sleep per night since we got him because he howls, barks, and paws at the gate, and floor of the crate.
We let him out before we go to bed around 10:30, he goes pee and poop, then we let him walk around just a little more, his last outing is probably 10-15mins Then we bring him back inside and put him in the crate. Within 10 minutes he starts howling, barking, etc. I am 100% serious when I say this, he will bark from 10:45pm to 2:00am non stop, then sleep for 10 minutes and then bark, and howl for another 2 hours, this is how it is the entire night, I'm not exaggerating.
We feed him at 5:30pm, and pull his water bowl at 6:00pm. He gets plenty of exercise during the day, but he does take several naps throughout the day, lasting anywhere from 1-3 hours.
Sometimes when he is barking and crying we will let him out of the crate, and put him on our bed, or he will just pass out right next to the bed on the floor. I know this is probably a bad idea, but he its the only way he will sleep. Once he falls asleep, we pick him up and guide him into the crate. Sometimes he will fall asleep (If we are lucky). Other times he will just sit there and howl and bark.
We also feed him in the crate, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have tried putting toys, no toys, Kong filled peanut butter, chew toys, etc and none of them help. We leave a blanket in the crate to lay on. It honestly feels like its getting worse.
If ANYONE can give us some advice it would be greatly appreciated because we are almost at a point where we can't function haha.
My girlfriend and I are running very thin on patience. We've literally averaged 3-4 hours of sleep per night since we got him because he howls, barks, and paws at the gate, and floor of the crate.
We let him out before we go to bed around 10:30, he goes pee and poop, then we let him walk around just a little more, his last outing is probably 10-15mins Then we bring him back inside and put him in the crate. Within 10 minutes he starts howling, barking, etc. I am 100% serious when I say this, he will bark from 10:45pm to 2:00am non stop, then sleep for 10 minutes and then bark, and howl for another 2 hours, this is how it is the entire night, I'm not exaggerating.
We feed him at 5:30pm, and pull his water bowl at 6:00pm. He gets plenty of exercise during the day, but he does take several naps throughout the day, lasting anywhere from 1-3 hours.
Sometimes when he is barking and crying we will let him out of the crate, and put him on our bed, or he will just pass out right next to the bed on the floor. I know this is probably a bad idea, but he its the only way he will sleep. Once he falls asleep, we pick him up and guide him into the crate. Sometimes he will fall asleep (If we are lucky). Other times he will just sit there and howl and bark.
We also feed him in the crate, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have tried putting toys, no toys, Kong filled peanut butter, chew toys, etc and none of them help. We leave a blanket in the crate to lay on. It honestly feels like its getting worse.
If ANYONE can give us some advice it would be greatly appreciated because we are almost at a point where we can't function haha.