Stuff 'n things

[wordinista]

Dear Everyone On My F-List:

I have been a very bad Bunneh.  I've been reading LJ (though not as obsessively these days), but I've hardly been replying to anyone.  I just want to let y'all know that it's mostly related to being sick, but also trying to keep an eye on Darwin AND keep on top of my normal daily responsibilities.  (This week I'm going to try and teach him that he does not have to have his nose directly up my butt 24/7, and the world will NOT end if I leave the room without him.)

I just realized that I haven't been commenting much, if at all, and it's been totally unintentional.  I've also been doing precisely jack for writing. 

I'm ALSO seriously reconsidering crate training Darwin overnight.  I need to get some sleep, and more than two hours at a time.  (Gotta say, I have newfound respect for new parents.)  He's not sleeping through the night, and he SHOULD be -- but I'm letting him out every 2 or 3 hours.  (He's slowly getting better -- one night he slept five hours straight.)  The first night we tried keeping him in his crate, he started howling and wouldn't stop.  I just hope I haven't created a bad habit in him.  *sigh*  I'm just so tired.  It's already one in the afternoon, and I don't know where the day has gone -- not because I've been super busy and productive, but because after takinghim out, feeding him, and playing with him (which ran from 6:30-8:00), we both collapsed for a nap that lasted THREE HOURS.  I hate napping.  Despise it.  It sucks up my day.

Any dog-owners on my f-list who can give some housebreaking advice here?  (Having him sleep on the bed and then rushing him outside whenever he woke up was Tora-kun's tactic, and it seems to be working not well at all -- aside from the fact that there've been no potty accidents in bed, knock wood.  Everyone I know has been recommending keeping the dog in its crate overnight until its fully housebroken, and I got such static from Tora-kun on that, it almost wasn't worth doing.  And then there was the endless howling, which sealed the deal.)

I just want a full night's sleep -- six to eight hours, consecutively.

Comments

[tx-tsuki.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. Wes' dog is in heat and my dog (a boy) is a whiny, howling bitch right now. Not to mention he suddenly knows how to hike his leg and is an constant state of excitement.

I crate my dogs. We started doing the first night we brought them home. Luckily, we had a room on the other side of the house so if one howled, we could put them in time out so to say. You're gonna have to ignore the howling.

We had no problems with one dog. She came from a small litter and was the last to go. The other dog came from a large litter and nearly drove me nuckin' futs with his howling and scratching at the crate. Both dogs know their box. They know when they are in trouble to get into their box and at night when we lock up the front door, they both go to their respective boxes. When Wes gets up in the morning, he lets both dogs out of their crates to go outside. It only took a week to get them into this routine. You might want to give it a try again.

[w0rdinista.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm going to give it another try. We crated him last night and all was quiet until about 2 am, which was when the howling started. So I moved his crate to the other side of the dining room, which is further away from our bedroom than it WAS. It helped, but only a little. Our iPod headphones helped more, actually...