Over the past month Jasper has been waking up between 3am & 4am every night. He usually whines a bit then as soon as he knows he's woke me he'll start to bark until I take him outside. First I just used to let him out and wait for him to come back in, but the cold air would "wake him up", so now I just take him out on leash. Since I started with the leash I've noticed he'll pee and poop every night. So I've started limited his food to between 5-6pm and I take away his water after 8ish.

I've also tried forcing him to go out right before we go to bed around 11pm figuring this would work since I know he's capable of holding it until morning. He used to go to bed at 10ish and not wake up or want to go out until 10-11am the next morning so I know he doesn't NEED to go out.

Then I thought maybe he just had excess energy and he's not tired enough to sleep through the night. So I've tried keeping him awake all day and not letting him sleep til we go to bed; didn't work. Then I tried taking him for a 6km hike in the afternoon, followed by 2 hours of playing at the dog park; still didn't work.

It's driving me insane and if it was a normal thing I'd accept it and move on but like I said, its a problem that only started the past month. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why he's doing this and what I can do to stop it? Sorry for the long post, I'm just desperate. Getting up every night is exhausting lol.

How cold is your room? Our room needs to be FREEZING for the dogs to sleep through the night, maybe he is just getting a little to warm. I mean its November here and Maine and we still have to use the air conditioner in our room cause if we don't have it on the dogs wake up and start to get restless, but when its cold they sleep like babies the whole night. Don't know if a fan on him would help, but we have found that it works for us, if he doesn't actually need to use the bathroom.

Good suggestion, Diz must have his fan to sleep too. Also, do you leave anything in his crate to chew on or toys, and water? I notice quite often Dizzy will wake up in the middle of the night and chew or drink water, if he's got nothing to entertain him, he'll get really restless.. I think he just wakes up and isn't tired any more, and wants something to do. He only cries to go out if he has a belly problem and he's never had an issue with the water or accidents overnight, I know others have though. Also, we go out for a 10-15 min walk right before bed for the LCP (last chance pee).

He doesn't sleep in his crate anymore because we found in the summer he got way too warm and would cry every hour just to get out and lie on the floor directly in front of it, so we just close our door enough for the cat to come and leave the room but Jasper can't get out of the bedroom. But I do bring his water and chew toys in our bedroom at bed time.

I'm in Newfoundland, which (if you're not familar) is already getting negative temperature nights and we leave the window open so our room literally is freezing temp most nights haha. Plus he does have a fan on him, we learned that trick this summer when he would pant and whine until we turned it.

rikku has started doing the same thing this past week... we are completely ignoring her, i do not let her out til she is quiet for a few minutes , and it will take time but just be patient and dont give in ...every time you let her out while she is barking you are encouraging her to do it the next time and the longer it will take to untrain

also our house is 60-65 at most, so its always pretty chilly in there, im going to try a fan tonight

I considered that, but we're in a basement apartment and I'm afraid he'll wake the landlord upstairs. However, she is a nurse and sometimes works 4 nightshifts in a row, think that's enough time to break him of the habit? haha

im hoping it will break for us soon too... its been 4 days so far...and im not sure how much more sleep i can loose, maybe you can talk to your lanlord about it, see if she will be gone for a couple days

hopefully! thanks everyone for the advice.

Jesse - good luck and I hope just adding a fan solves your problem