Dog sleeping arrangment advice

[bigdave]

On second thought this should probably be ing the Dog section not General discussion Sorry...I messed up and I can't delete it.

I have a couple of issues...

I have an 8 month old lab cross (lab/blue heeler). He is doing well with his training and is incorporating into the family very well. I have a son who is 6 and a daughter who is 2. The dog knows that he can play with the son but he is not to use his teeth,(son or dog!) and that the 2 yr old is off limits except for a quick lick in greeting. He is house trained. When we got him, I knew the importance of crate training and all went well. He is only in it at night to sleep and occasionally when the weather has been too cold for him to go to his outside kennel while I am at work. I had a large dog crate, but to make him feel more secure when he was small I bought the medium sized crate.

Well, he is bigger now and although he still fits into the medium crate there is not enough room for him to stretch out.  When I ask him to go in, he goes in, turns around, and lays down all curled up. Last night, by his body language, I was getting the feeling from him that he did not want to go in and he would rather sleep outside his crate where he can stretch out. I asked him to go in and he went over and laid down on a pile of laundry. I said "no" and asked him again to go in his crate which he did, but with a look that said he thought I was being unreasonable.

We have the large crate but it takes up a lot of space. Because of that, I am getting resistance from my wife about moving him into the larger one. We also have kept his crate in a more isolated part of the house because at first, like all puppies, he was a bit of a whiner about going to bed. The dog is for companionship and for intruder deterrent and my argument is that the latter is not very effective if he is crated in a part of the house away from the family and main entrances at night. I wonder about just letting him choose a place in the house he would like to sleep (within reason) and getting a dog bed and letting him sleep there.

When the dog is sleeping out in the living room in the evening after everyone but me goes to bed, he does occasionally hear a noise and wake up abruptly and growl and bark (you know, hackles up, "what the hell was that noise...you better leave now..)  When he does it to me or my wife, we just talk to him and he recognizes that we are family, no big deal. We have never felt like he would bite us as long as we identify ourselves. My wife is worried that if we let the dog "sleep out" there might be a situation when the dog might be a little disoriented from sleeping and growl and bark (or bite) my son if my son gets up in the night to use the bathroom. My son is also a sleepwalker and often gets up not fully recognizing what he is doing. I do share her concern, but not to the level of worry that she does. However, I do not want to have something silly happen between boy and dog because of my bad judgement. My solution is let the dog sleep in my sons room, that way if my son gets up it will wake the dog up too cause you know the dog will be on the boys bed.

So a few questions:

1. Would there be a downside to letting him sleep out at night in another designated spot other than his crate?

2. Should I trust an immature (he's only 8 months), sleepy dog?

3. Do I let him (within reason) choose where he would like to sleep?

4. What would be the best, safest way to transition from crate to "sleeping out" and let some of the watchdog behavior happen without endangering my family?

I know some of these questions are difficult because you do not know my dog and every dog has a different personality. But any advice you feel would help me decide what to do would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave
 

[sisu]

Wow, all good questions and no answers.

[gasman]

We have a dog pillow for our labs. They sleep on it durring the day.

At night we allow our dogs sleep with us. Snickers (our yellow lab) sleeps either at the foot of our bed on my wife's side (she is short, so it does not effect her) or in my daughters room on the floor. Buddy (my chocolate lab) will currel up under our bed r sleep in the hallway in frnt of the bed room doors. It makes him feel as thou he is protecting us.

We consider our dogs as our family member. they have run of the house and sleep where ever they feel. There are limits to what they can and can't do in the house and that is hw we trained them. Buddy will join us in bed at bed time for a short amount f time to play and get some lightly loving from us, then move on to where he is sleeping at night.
Some times i thing he feel as thou he is human. When the wife is in the bathroom getting ready for bed, he will lay on here side of the bed with his on the pillow and look at me. i swear he is thinking that he is going to stay there and have the wife sleep on the floor, but he always loses the battel when she comes in the room 

by the way our dogs are 11months and 9 mnths old, still puppys.

Trust that you have house broken him and trained him to do the right thing 

[coop2424]

Here is my personal opionion.  I have owned a lot of dogs and this is how I personally do it.  I am not saying it is the correct way or not but it works for us.

1. Would there be a downside to letting him sleep out at night in another designated spot other than his crate?  When they were younger we crate train them.  Then as they got older we then left the door to the crate open at night and most of the time they would go in the crate on their own and sleep in the crate.  We also have a dog bed that we can move throughout the house if they do not want to get in the crate or if we want them in another area.

2. Should I trust an immature (he's only 8 months), sleepy dog? This is something you will have to determine.  I personally have way to much trust in dogs sometimes but that is because I am the one training them and they know that I am the leader.  I make sure to watch my dogs whenever I am around them.  I would imagine that he would be ok at this time since he has already made his bond with your family.  I would not think he would attack anyone that was in the house just moving around but you know the dog.

3. Do I let him (within reason) choose where he would like to sleep? I personally say no on this.  I like to keep control of my dogs so they know what they can and can't do.  That is why I use a crate or specific dog bed plus I think they like to have an area that they know is theirs.  I personally make my dogs sleep on their beds or floor because I do not want them on furniture or our bed.  Sometimes they get to sleep with us but not very often. (Costco beds are the best and cheapest.)

4. What would be the best, safest way to transition from crate to "sleeping out" and let some of the watchdog behavior happen without endangering my family? I would do this by first opening the crate door and letting him have free roam of a certain room with maybe a dog bed.  Then open up the area a little bit more and put the bed in that area.  Then so on tell you get to a point where he is in the areas that you want him to be.  I personally let my dogs have free roam but they will sleep where I put their beds.  They do not get up if we get up in the middle of night but if they hear something outside they bark and will get up..

Hope this helps out..

[Intruder]

Seems like #2 & 4 may be the biggest issue you face.  Some of the other stuff is more your personal preference.  I've never had a dog that exhibited that kind of behavior when woken up.  Personally it'd make me a little nervous.  On the surface it sounds like something that could get worse if not corrected now. 

With kids and potentially their friends around you obviously don't want a loose cannon.  I've always taken quick and decisive action to correct any aggressive behavior.  My dogs bark at things (doorbell, people in the yard) but I don't allow them ever to  direct any sort of aggression at an individual near them.  At 8 months I'm not sure how you'd go about tempering this.... maybe purposely waking him and going through a routine to desensitise him to that.  I'd think he'd still be young enough that it wouldn't be too hard to turn around.      

[jackelope]

I'm going with Intruder on this one...

I've never had a dog that exhibited that kind of behavior when woken up.  Personally it'd make me a little nervous.  On the surface it sounds like something that could get worse if not corrected now.  

My dog is very dominant(which i don't like) and has a real strong "guard dog" mentality as far as door bells and people walking down the street in the sense that he will bark and sound like he's gonna come through the door after you...till you get in the house then he just wants to lick you to death. I have mostly full trust in my dog with my 2 year old(i won't fully trust a dog with a toddler). My dog does not wake up groggy though (like  I do) and he doesn't wake up "more aggressive" for lack of a better word. He sleeps in my kid's room at times with no concerns from my wife or I.
You might keep an eye on that behavior.

[quacker whacker]

first off, i have no children so no real experience the with dog/child stuff. We have 3 dogs, 2 little ones and my hunting lab. My lab sleeps outside all year and only outside in the summer for the little ones. I guess the point i'm trying to make is, we have a baby gate between the kitchen and living room so the little dogs will sleep on their dog bed in the kitchen and not get free roam of the house. This might help if you're worried about your dog thinking your children are intruders and harming them, keeps him in the kitchen or laundry room or where ever you put the baby gate. Also works well to keep them on they easily cleanable linolem when they are wet/muddy untill they dry off, intead of ruining/staining carpet.

[huntlakewood]

#2 Like most people have said it is going to be about how much you trust your dog (Puppy).
I wouldn't think that your son would be an issue cause I would think the dog would catch his sent before he bit. I would be kind of worried about if he had friends over and he did not know there sent.

I have a chow golden retreiver mix that runs the house at night she mainly sleeps down stairs but does have the run of the house I like the fact that if any one entered the house from where ever she would be on top of them.

My pup black lab I have in a kennal ( 3 months) when she gets older and I know I can trust her she will have the same fredom ( wife will probaly have her in bed with us)   

[bigdave]

Thanks for all your feedback.

My first dog was a choco lab that mostly stayed outside. I had her trained to a dog bed. Pretty much if she was in the house she had to be on her bed. Because of what happened to my first dog last winter, I told my wife that this next dog was going to be a much bigger part of our family. If we are home, the dog comes inside.

My instinct says the dog is smart enough to distinguish between an intruder and member of his family. The concern with friends who stay the night is duly noted. He has never put his teeth on anyone in anger, and I hope he never does because I will not tolerate it and have worked hard to not let bad habits start. This one aspect has been really hard because having a 6 yr old boy, it's like training two puppies at once. They both want to play with each other, but they have to be taught what the limits are.


I'm going to get him a dog bed this weekend and start training him to it. Then we can progress from there to giving him a choice between his bed or the crate. If he prefers the crate, I'm OK with that but I'm thinking he will want to sleep closer to his pack if possible.

Again, thanks for taking the time to read that long post and type some great responses.

Dave

[Shannon]

I had my dog sleep in a crate until about 7 months old. When I felt she was ready I put a dog bed next to my bed and placed the bed that was inside the crate on the dog bed I wanted her to sleep on. I shut the bedroom doors at first and kept a squirt bottle by the bed and squirted her if she got up to roam. After a few nights she never moved all night. Never had any problems. My friends laugh when I tell her to go to her room and she wonders into the master bedroom and lays down on her bed.

[whitey]

Harley loves his crate.It is His own space.I would keep Him in the crate at night just so I wouldnt wake up to find while I was sleeping the dog was either chewing,peeing or anything else that has "Ing" in it.
Harley has the choice to go in the crate or sleep beside the bed.He is about 50-50 most of the time.
Good luck.

[Snowman]

Well my 3yrs old lab has always been in our room. I did the crate when she was young and now the only time I use the crate is when she is in heat. My wife kinda hates the arrangement now as she sleeps next to me in bed. I like it cause when my wife don't want to cuddle, my pup doesn't argue when I cuddle up too it LOL. Although the wife does get jealous, won't admit it, but she does LOL. 

[lokidog]

A little off-topic but,  I had a healer lab mix, a very smart dog but a bit aggressive.  She had a huge vocabulary but was kind of a bitch (no pun intended) until I started running her two plus miles a day alongside my bike.  What a difference the exercise made.  She liked to run herd on kids though, especially if they were wobbly walkers.

I think unnattended dogs are best left in crates until they are very well trained.  Our golden (8 years old) now has free run of the downstairs at night because she has earned our trust.  She only comes up the stairs if she REALLY needs to go out or if she hears racoons outside and really wants to get out.  Our little spaniel was crated through two years old as he was not quite trusted at night.

[seth30]

I still keep my dogs in the crate at night.  They are over a year old, and I can not break there habit of chewing while we are not around them. Maybe its a anxiety thing, but my dogs are the perfect example of when the cats away, the mice will play! 

[SpokaneSlayer]

I keep my dog (1 1/2 yr old GSP) in a crate in the kitchen during the day while at work or whenever we leave the house.  Sometimes he goes in there on his own and takes a nap.  At night, he sleeps my wife and I.  He stays in there all night, except maybe to get a drink of water, then right back in bed with us.

[bigdave]

Just a quick update. My dog did great with being trained to his dog bed outside the crate. We started by training him to his dog bed during the day. When he would go to his bed and stay, we tried him out of his crate right outside our bedroom door. He did very well. When we go to bed, he gets on his dogbed and stays there for the night. There were a couple of instances where the dog heard my son get up to use bathroom and the dog growled a couple of times and once even barked. I was out of bed in a flash, but there was nothing to worry about because as soon as he saw (smelled) who it was, he stopped and just followed him down the hall and waited for him to finish and then followed him back down the hall and tried to get in bed with my son, but my son took him to his dog bed and settled him in and said "stay" and the dog actually listened!!

  Since then, I have moved his dog bed down the hall so he can see all three bedroom doors in our house and he has not growled since that move. It has worked out splendidly.

[Rowdy]

Sorry, didn't have time to read all the replies.

My experience:
Crate trained the pup like you and then during the day trained him to get on his bed.  Before long during the day he knew to go to his bed to sleep, relax, lay down.  The better half conviced me to start letting him sleep outside of his crate and I would move his bed into my bedroom at night.  Worked like a charm and still does to this day.  It works great and I eventually bought another bed for both rooms which was a blessing because sometimes he wants to get away (company, family, neighbors) and he'll mosey into the bedroom for a nap on his bed.

Good luck, sounds like you're training him good. 

Jake