Sleeping On Her Bed

[Guest makalataylor]

Molly is doing better, everyday is a new learning experience. Any suggestions on encouraging her to sleep on her own bed. When we first got her she slept in the living room on her favorite couch. Now that she is beginning to become closer to us, she wants to be in the room with us...but in our bed and will not settle for "No, off" . We have a queen size bed and there just isn't enough room.

 

Any suggestions on getting her familiar with *her* bed? I feel awful leaving her in the living room because she will give me the saddest eyes, and then after we are asleep she will sneak into the room and leap onto our small bed.

 

 

 

 

[2greyhoundMINI]

Try giving her treats when she gets on her bed. And praise.

[Guest k9soul]

Rudy likes to lie in bed with me in the evening while I read my book, but he has to get off when I go to sleep because he has sleep startle and I don't want to have any incidents to worry about. So what I did was start using the phrase "ok Time for bed!" and I'd say it in a cheery tone. At first I'd lure him off with a biscuit and then give it to him in his own bed. After a while of doing that and he was doing it readily I stopped using the treat as a lure but would get him a treat after he got down and bring it to his bed. At first sometimes he'd have the treat and jump back up, but I'd simply say "uh uh, time for bed, come on" and I'd get up and cheerily call him to his bed. After a few tries he'd give up and lie in his bed.

 

At first I went through a few treats at a time doing all this, but now all I have to say is "it's time for bed" and he eagerly gets down and goes to his bed. I usually always still give him one bedtime treat (probably 90% of the time anyway). He doesn't try to get back up anymore after I say "time for bed." It just takes some persistence and patience. I never yelled or grabbed his collar or anything to make it unpleasant.

Edited September 6, 2016 by k9soul

[BatterseaBrindl]

Ummmm..... Just get another dog bed for your room!

[Guest makalataylor]

Ummmm..... Just get another dog bed for your room!

 

 

She has a bed, she just has no interest in it...she wants to be in the bed with us, so was just hoping for suggestions like k9soul gave. .

 

Would love to have different suggestions as to what I can do to familiarize her to her own bed.

[GreytTerp]

We did / now do something similar to k9soul. Marvin will usually come up on our bed to hang out while I'm reading before turning the lights out. To avoid his grouchy side, we taught him "time to go to bed" for him to get off of our bed and go to his own bed (in our bedroom). Once he's on his own bed, he gets his bedtime treat. He won't go to sleep without his biscuit... In general, part due to some 'who's in charge here' behavior and slippery wood floors, we did not allow Marvin on our bed for the first 6 or 8 months that we had him, so there wasn't much reversal required for us. Good luck, and enjoy Molly's personality continuing to emerge.

[Guest xengab]

Do as the others suggest as well as ANYTIME he gets on your bed, you say NO!, then lead him to his bed, say (bedtime or on your bed) with a VERY happy YES! and a treat. EVERY time he gets on the bed you need to do that. It will mean at 3am you'll be taking the hound to his bed, but after a few nights he will stop.

 

You can even practice this during the day. With training on settling. Make the bed a really good thing to be on, lots of treats and praise. Use the same word each time (bedtime or on your bed), when he does, say YES! and give a treat.

We had a hound who'd wander around the room during the night time, and used this method. We just say BED, and then he goes to his bed, flops down with a huff, I say YES! then Good boy (tail wags..LOL). Took him a week to learn it.

[Guest makalataylor]

Do as the others suggest as well as ANYTIME he gets on your bed, you say NO!, then lead him to his bed, say (bedtime or on your bed) with a VERY happy YES! and a treat. EVERY time he gets on the bed you need to do that. It will mean at 3am you'll be taking the hound to his bed, but after a few nights he will stop.

 

You can even practice this during the day. With training on settling. Make the bed a really good thing to be on, lots of treats and praise. Use the same word each time (bedtime or on your bed), when he does, say YES! and give a treat.

We had a hound who'd wander around the room during the night time, and used this method. We just say BED, and then he goes to his bed, flops down with a huff, I say YES! then Good boy (tail wags..LOL). Took him a week to learn it.

 

 

Is it okay once she learns to go to her bed on command to allow her on the bed if we invite her?

[Scoutsmom]

I think you need to get a King-sized bed.

[Guest makalataylor]

I think you need to get a King-sized bed.

I wish that was doable right now!!!

[GreytTerp]

 

 

Is it okay once she learns to go to her bed on command to allow her on the bed if we invite her?

 

I think so. We did this just last night. Many dogs never have any trouble adjusting, but Marvin was a bit of a brat with getting nasty with us when we needed to get something off of him or owning certain spaces when he first joined our family. Now, he's just a bed hog and will take the covers right off of you to build his nest, after he left only about 1/4 of the bed for me to "share".

[krissy]

 

Is it okay once she learns to go to her bed on command to allow her on the bed if we invite her?

 

Yes, but remember that consistency is one of the most essential parts of training. If you start inviting her up it may become difficult to uninvite her. lol

 

For example, our dogs are allowed on the furniture. DBF just cleaned the couches (they're a suede type leather) because his parents were coming for a week to stay. Well, once they were clean he didn't want the dogs on the couches until after his parents left, to prevent them from getting them all dirty again. Let me tell you how well that worked... not at all unless we blocked access to the entire living room. Then he got all upset about it, but as I pointed out to him... dogs have a hard time with exceptions. They don't necessarily understand "it's okay this time, but not next time". It's do-able to some extent, but personally I prefer to put my training efforts elsewhere and I don't really care about dogs on furniture and in beds.

[sobesmom]

 

 

Is it okay once she learns to go to her bed on command to allow her on the bed if we invite her?

Once she is totally cool with sleeping in HER bed, yes. But that might take a while. Until she's sleeping in her bed consistently, I wouldn't try it. It might confuse her.

 

I had a grey that slept with me when my DH wasn't in the bed. He worked overnights. On the nights he was home, Sobe slept on a dogbed. He easily learned when it was and wasn't ok to be in the bed. When DH had an early day shift and got up at 3 am, Sobe got into bed with me. He held no grudge against DH, just understood 1 human in bed = ok. 2 humans in bed = no.

 

Now on the odd days DH was off work and got out of bed to go to the bathroom in the early morning hours, Sobe would hop into bed (as normal) and be VERY confused when DH would come back to bed. Then we just had a very crowded bed for a few hours. Not the dog's fault - DH messed up the routine.

[Guest k9soul]

The only other thing I'd add is be careful about grabbing the collar to make her do anything. I made this mistake with a past dog and it caused problems with her being head shy or not letting me approach if she thought I might grab her collar. Some dogs growl or react defensively too. So now it's something I completely avoid unless of an emergency (like when someone dropped a glass that broke on the floor and Rudy wanted to go investigate). If your girl is food driven it should be fairly easy to get to associate her bed as a rewarding place to be.

 

A few other ideas: Add some old blankets and sheets to the bed for her to "nest" in and make it more interesting. Maybe even some dirty shirts from the laundry that smell like you. I'll chime in with more if I think of anything!

Edited September 8, 2016 by k9soul