Hi everyone,
My partner and I have adopted a female miniature dachshund called Samoa, who is 2 months old. She has been with us for 4 days now.
We've already started training and play (teaching her to be left alone, the "bed" command, "sit", etc.). She's picking things up quite quickly.
We take her out into the garden regularly to do her business and give her a little treat when she goes outside. On that front, I think things are going pretty well.
But the problem is, nighttime is a nightmare.
Samoa has a bed with a soft mattress, a t-shirt with my scent on it, a blanket and her toys.
After reading lots of articles on various forums and sites to get her house-trained quickly, we put her bed inside a large cardboard box (with the top open) and a puppy pad just in case.
During the day the box is left open and she has no problem going in there.
At night I close the entrance to the box to stop her wandering around the living room (we live in a flat and don't have a separate room where we can shut her away quietly for the night).
She whines, howls and barks all night long!! We’re only getting about 30 minutes to an hour of sleep at a time. It’s starting to get really difficult. We take her out once or twice during the night for toilet breaks (usually at 2am and 4am).
I’ve read plenty of threads saying to leave the box or crate open so she can move around, but that seems to contradict the house-training we're working on. I mean, she might be less stressed if she could wander, but she’d almost certainly have accidents indoors. And as I mentioned, we don't have a closed-off room for the night. Is letting her roam the living room at night really a good idea?
I get the feeling the bed-in-a-box setup doesn't suit her (she's been attacking it for the last two nights, tearing bits off and trying to climb out). What can we do to get some peace and quiet? I know she's only been with us for four nights, but I don't see any improvement (in fact, we're getting less and less sleep).
Thanks in advance for your advice.
