Please read my entire post before you pass judgement on me.

We have a nine month old male husky FULL of energy. He is exercised daily, plays fetch with us, plays with our other two dogs. He is constantly on the move. Which I understand is typical and good for puppy! Our problem is that he will only sleep for about three hours a night. Once he is awake, he is aaaaaawake and will not go back sleep. We have to crate him at night because he still cannot be trusted around the house unsupervised for extended periods of time.

During the workday he is only crated for about four hours a day in the morning. We are at a loss as what to do. We have tried everything we can possibly think of! We need sleep... I have read that there are natural sleeping aids and wondered if anyone on here had ever tried them? I don't want him conked out, but sometimes I think he be happier just a little less hyper during the night.

There are no medical issues, he is eating normally. We are stimulating him mentally with his training/playing.

I would love to hear your suggestions and if anyone has ever used any of these sleep aids...

Honestly, it sound's to like he needs more exercise. Try walking, jogging, or even biking him! I take mine to the dog park for hours and let them run it off and they crash. Playing in the yard isn't always enough. I would also get a backpack for him and add bottle waters to it.

I honestly think the sleeping pills are a waste of money and don't believe a 9 month old should be on them or any dog for that matter. I have a 9 month old and would never consider putting her on them. I would crate her and put a sheet over the crate. If that didn't work, I would put her in a different room and close my door so I didn't have to hear her. Even ear plugs if it came down to it.

You shouldn't have to sacrifice you're sleep, because of you're dog. It's not healthy for you. I don't believe it's healthy for the pup either to be on sleeping pills. I would try a different approach before settling on the pills.

How much exercise are you giving him? Koda from 5-10 months was insane in energy. He didn't act up, but he'd be in our room, between 3:30AM-4:30AM, and not leave us alone until he got a good 3-4 mile jog. Got that out of the way and then we all went back to bed.

I would definitely vote against giving a sleeping pill to a dog, especially a puppy.
I would start with more excercise. Lots and lots of excercise. To put it in perspective, I know what they say about limiting your puppies excercise, but Soshanna used to go 15 miles a day or so, on mountainous trails, for 3 or 4 days in a row at that age. By the time I was exhausted beyond moving another foot, Soshanna would finally be slowing down a bit. Now, just to sleep without a dog disruption, my dogs need 10km of walking every single day, on top of the hours of play in our yard.

While upping his exercise i'm sure will help (especially immediately before bed time) some dogs just need to learn that it's time to relax. What happens if you just let him cry it out?

Also feeding earlier, so that energy doesn't spike later in the evening may help.

I'm with Kristina on this one - let him cry it out. We had to do this with Cato. We also let our dogs sleep in our bed. They have learned that if they come in the bedroom and the door shuts, its time for sleep.

One of my friends has a Great Dane/Lab mix. This dog has issues. He has LOTS of issues. She has to put him on melatonin, but not at night. He sleeps just fine. This dog has energy up the ying yang, and most of it is nervous energy. I personally think the melatonin does anything. Once she started taking him to the dog park, he calmed down and became a whole different dog. She attributes this to the "drug", I don't.

With a young pup, I second the more exercise. Just give it a shot before you try pumping him with sleeping pills. You should also really never give into the crying. At first he was probably crying to cry, and then it started working. You just gotta let him cry it out. He'll stop. Sheba cried non stop it seemed the first whole month, but now she's in LOVE with her crate.