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3 rescued dogs and mostly perfect, except..

227 views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  cr1owd 
#1 ·
Hi everyone!

After desperate searching, I found this site and joined today as I've run out of ideas and am hoping someone here will know what to do..

I have an old (13yr old) rescue dog that I've had since a pup and he sleeps in the room with me and my wife. We rescued a 2yr old dog in November 2014 and she also sleeps in the room with us. In March of 2015, we rescued our 3rd dog ("Nacho" - also 2 years old). He was a wild one when we got him, so he was in a crate in our room with the other dogs at night for a couple months until he calmed down and then eventually was allowed to sleep outside the crate. He sleeps in the room with us as well.

My 9 year old son desperately wants the 3rd dog ("Nacho") to sleep with him as it is technically his dog. For the past 6 weeks he has spent an hour or two during the day every day with Nacho in his room and that goes fine. At bedtime, Nacho is fine going into his room, but only for about 10 minutes. After that he scratches at the door incessantly and whines if left in there until we let him out (after about 30 minutes). We have tried putting a board in front of the door, but he just scratches that. We have tried using the crate in there but he just scratches at the floor of the crate and pants a lot until we let him out of the room after 30 minutes of this. The only time he will stay in my son's room at night and not scratch is if I sleep in there with them.

We don't want to cause Nacho undue stress and/or make him turn mean and dislike my son (he's a wonderful, loving dog), but we can't seem to change his sleeping habit. Should we just let him scratch through the night every night (instead of letting him out after 30 minutes) until he finally gives up? Should we instead use the crate and do the same thing? Are there any other ideas? Is this a lost cause? I am very concerned that I made a grave mistake by initially having him in my room at night and really want to help my son with this.

I would be very grateful for any ideas/thoughts any members might have - I'm willing to try anything.

Thanks very much!
Jeff
 
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