We rescued Halligan about a month and a half ago. He is 14 months old. At first, he absolutely HATED going in his crate and would pitch a royal hissy fit. He has now learned "crate" and will trot right in there. He is quite talkative, in the crate and outside of it. He cries a little at first, if we are still up and making noise, but seems to settle down much better than he did at first. We feed them a couple hours before bed, he has plenty of access to water, and always has a potty break before going in his crate.

That being said, he wakes me up EVERY NIGHT. Last night was at 2am, 4am, and 6am, when I put him and Kane outside to play until we got up shortly before 8 (fenced yard, of course). We put them in their crates at about 1130pm, after they had been outside for 20+ minutes, having pee break and playing in snow. In the middle of the night, he cries and cries and if I don't get up he will get louder and louder and it finally turns to barking. I've tried ignoring it, I've tried telling him "no", I don't know what else to do.

He drinks A LOT of water, and I've considered limiting it before bedtime, but I don't want to deprive him. He has a potty break before going in crate. He has peed his crate a few times, usually when we're gone for 8 hours or so. I don't know if he's crying for a pee break or just for attention. He is not alone in the room, he and Kane have their own room and their own giant crates (the biggest ones they make). Plenty of room to turn around and sprawl out in whatever contortionist fashion they want.

Any suggestions? I'm completely exhausted.

Take away water 2 hours before bedtime, and have his last potty be right before it's time for bed. Set specific intervals that YOU wake him up and take him outside in the night, and then gradually push those farther apart, until there's only one wake up, and then there's a full nights sleep. His bladdr just isn't trained to hold it yet, it seems like.

Where is the location of the crate? Dragon did the same thing until we moved his crate into our room. As soon as we did that the whining completely stopped.. he used to howl like an old woman until I would get up and let him out 2/3 and something 4 times a night and i was SO exhausted but after we moved it into our room he sleeps all night. Every once in awhile he will wake us up to take him out but thats VERY rare. I think most of his whining was separation anxiety.

... are the dogs both going out together several times during the night? If so, it sounds like he's got you trained pretty darn well! haha If not, then I'd go with what Eric said- remember Patience is key!