Please help - My Pup has issues with sleeping

Hey all. I need some advice. I have a 9 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I am obsessed with her. She is like a child to DH and I. She stays in her crate during the day while we are at work and I have a dog walker come for an hour each day. As she gets older, I will get rid of the crating and let her have free roam when she is ready for it. When we come home I play her and tire her out. Play for hours, running, jumping, walks, etc. My issue is that she does not sleep through the night. She is up at 1:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom and then up again at 3:30 a.m. to play. Today she would not go back to sleep until 6 and then I had to get up for 7. I am exhausted because this keeps happening every night. Perhaps my issue is having her sleep in/by our bed. Do I crate her for sleep at night? I feel badly because she is crated during the day. I want her to be able to stretch out fully and spread out. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Re: Please help - My Pup has issues with sleeping

This is a tough call. I think this clearly means she is sleeping too much during the day b/c she is crated and has too much energy that is not being spent during the day.

Can you gate her into an area, such as your kitchen, etc, so that she can roam more? I am a fan of crate training but some dogs just have too much energy to be crated all day (my male dog was like this).

Obvious answer is your dog needs more exercise during the day....not sure how you can go about this other than having more dog walkers come in or gating in a kitchen (which may interfere with crate training).

Re: Please help - My Pup has issues with sleeping

If it is at all feasible I would look into doggy daycare. Ozzie goes just twice a week and it has made a huge different with his energy level - he is zonked for a good couple days after!!! Some dogs just aren't the laze around all day type so it may just be too much sleeping for her.

Re: Please help - My Pup has issues with sleeping

Our shih tzu coco is 6 months and we don't need to crate her any more. One of us is able to run home during the day and take her out.

I agree with the previous posters with maybe giving her more space to walk around. When we get home I can tell she plays with her toys while we are gone. Also getting her to play with other dogs is also a great idea.

THis weekend we watched my girlfriend's dog and the two of them played and played. Coco went to bed and 7pm each night.

We do have to take her out in the middle night. But it is usually once or twice and she goes right back to bed. She sleeps with us