Greetings, fellow dog lovers! Are you curious about why your puppy wants to play at night and potential solutions to this behavior? If so, keep reading this article.
There are several reasons why a puppy may want to play at night, such as having excess energy, consuming foods that keep them awake, a common behavior, an uncomfortable sleeping environment, needing to pee or poop, feeling hungry, or getting dinner too close to bedtime. Solutions to this behavior can include providing adequate exercise, feeding them dinner in advance, and creating a comfortable sleeping zone for your puppy.
It is important to closely observe these potential causes, as both normal and abnormal circumstances can influence this behavior. So, let’s dive right in and explore this topic further.
Reasons why your puppy might need to play at night
Here we will lay out the possible reasons that could affect this behavior, and then we gonna walk you through some of the helpful solutions that can address the issue.
It feels so wired and annoying when you are in a deep sleep, and the puppy suddenly becomes nocturnal, bothers to play, or makes enough noises that can startle you off.
1. Having excess energy
If your puppy has excess energy in its body, it can be a little active and playful at night.
Moreover, this could also indicate your incapability of meeting its exercises needs due to ignorance or not having a proper exercise schedule.
There is nothing wrong with the puppy because it just wants to release its excess energy, and it doesn’t matter for them whether it’s day or night.
However, it’s a common fact that almost all diurnal creatures tend to sleep during the night more than a day.
So, if it’s night and your puppy still wanna play with you, I can guess that there is something that isn’t right with its exercise schedule.
Recommended reading: Can you leave a dog downstairs at night?
2. Foods that keep them awake.
If your puppy thinks that the middle of the night is a playtime, perhaps it has to do something with his/her diet.
You know what, certain foods don’t provide any value to your loving pooch while causing bad health circumstances like obesity.
So, you gotta reconsider whether its diet is fully balanced. It seems like this diet has ingredients that leave so much excess energy in your loving puppy friend, resulting in high activeness and playfulness at night.
3. A common behavior among puppies.
If your puppy wanna play at night all of a sudden, chances are still puppies, just like human children.
As we all know, kids are playful, and they would love to have some fun time without having much difference in day and night.
Usually, puppy bladder is quite small and they cannot hold pee for more than a few hours, making them wake up in the middle night or early morning.
So, in your case, it might exhibit its urgency by whining or low moaning just to inform you.
4. Bad sleeping environment.
Your puppy might wake up at night due to an uncomfortable sleeping environment, making them less interested in sleeping and high excitement to have some playtime.
Here are some uncomfortable environments you need to look for.
- Having a big and bright light switched on all the time where the place puppy sleeps.
- Uncomfortable noises. Maybe someone is watching TV in the middle of the night.
- The room is a bit hot.
- It’s too cold.
- Someone is groaning heavily at night.
5. It needs to pee.
Say you took the puppy out for potty work. Young puppies tend to be entirely enthusiastic as it sees outdoors and feel the nature with a nice wind.
In fact, your puppy would love to hang around with the human companion, especially yours, making him excited and attempt to have some playtime even these dark hours!
Imagine for a second how it looks like when a little one wakes at night. Almost every mama faces a hard time getting their child t sleep.
Well, there is no much difference when it comes to puppies. If it doesn’t feel the sleep, your puppy will play for a couple of hours until it feels tired and sleep.
Recommended reading: 9 Causes Why does my dog pee upstairs & 11 solutions
6. Is its food down all the time?
Is your puppy’s food down all the time? Most canines tend to awake in the middle of the night and have some “late snacks” as they feel a bit empty.
So, They are more likely to play a little with their toys when they feel full after eating.
7. Feeding prior to bedtime.
If your puppy wakes at midnight or early in the morning and tries to wake you up, the reason could be the puppy gets its dinner just before bedtime.
As we discussed earlier, their stomach and bladder are significantly smaller than adult dogs.
Therefore, feeding right before bedtime could increase accidents, indigestion, and some unnecessary behaviors.
So, just after going out for potty work, they tend to stay open-eyed for a long time. So, when there are toys and standing next to him, this situation is an excellent opportunity to have some playtime from their perspective.
Suggested Reading: Why do some dogs drop their toys on purpose?
What to do if puppy wants to play at night?
Now, you are fully aware of the possible reasons. So, it’s time to explore the possibilities to take down this unwanted trait.
Here are 7 things you give a shot.
1. Provide adequate exercise.
Yeah, they are still puppies. But they are puppies with FULL OF ENERGY, right?
It doesn’t matter what the breed is. Almost every dog is required to have at least some level of activity in order to burn off its excess energy.
So, you gotta ensure that your puppy gets adequate exercises at several different intervals (This varies with breeding. Talk with your Vet) throughout the day, which makes them tired, resulting in a good night’s sleep.
Then your puppy won’t attempt to wake up at night and try to play.
Tip: Say your puppy used to sleep around 9 P.M. and the evening exercise session is around 5 P.M. So, I recommend you to shift the exercise session from 5 P.M. to around 8 P.M. This is possible if you have a bit of a large indoor area. Since there are still puppies, it doesn't necessarily require a vast space. Try to get him super tired prior to bedtime, he will sleep better. Come ooon. Give it a shot!
The next thing I wanna recommend is teaching him the “Go to sleep” command. If you really wanna know how to get your puppy to sleeping, I highly suggest you watch the following video.
2. Keep the puppy busy.
Suppose your puppy starts to play at night or wakes up middle of the night and starts enjoying. So, you really need to put him to sleep.
One of the things I’ve tried with my dogs is giving them a puzzle chew toy to chew on the night before bedtime. By the time about 20 minutes after, they would go to sleep.
So, you can try it if your puppy wakes up and start playing in the middle of the night.
3. Make a doggy comforting sleeping zone.
Creating a doggy comforting sleeping zone is one of the best things I’ve ever tried to keep my dogs sleep throughout the night.
Here are several things you can try under this tip.
- The sleeping should be a less noisy area.
- The area should be dark, which means avoid large and bright lights.
- Dogs prefer to sleep in corners rather than in the middle of a room.
- Think about the temperature.
- Provide chew toys.
- Provide comfortable bedding.
4. Keep the puppy in your bedroom at night.
In general, most of the puppies would like to sleep around their householders.
So, you can try moving its crate to inside your room. In fact, you can try keeping two or more crates in different areas, possibly one crate is downstairs and one upstairs.
5. Crate him.
If your puppy used to play at night, perhaps the best thing you can do is providing good crate training.
I’d like to say that crate him for an hour or two after a playing session during the day and when the puppy also looks tired.
So, your canine friend will have a good sleeping during this hour or two.
The same thing you can apply at night too. After you follow the “Tip” the “under solution 1”, let him go into its crate. It will work.
6. Use a leash to take the puppy out at night.
Suppose your puppy wakes up in the middle of the night and goes out with you for potty.
Be sure to use leashed him up prior to going outside because it doesn’t allow your puppy to run around and play a bit after his business is done.
By doing so, we can keep him still drowsy, making them less interested at start playing at night after the potty work is being done.
Although you take him out, make sure to keep the least amount of interactions and intercommunications by making them realize the only thing they have to do is potty.
7. Praising
Let’s retake the same instance.
Provide him a lot of praise and say good boy If the puppy tries to go to bed without playing after going out to pee at night.
In fact, try improving the “Quiet” command. This will help keep him quiet if he starts to whine and cry.
Q & A
Why does my puppy want to play at midnight?
If your puppy wakes up around 12 A.M. and needs to play, it only has been sleeping for several hours. The food your puppy ate for dinner, bad sleeping environment, might need to pee or poop can be the possible reasons.
Why does my puppy want to play at 2am?
If your puppy thinks 2 AM is one of the playtimes, that can be a normal circumstance for a puppy that has gone to bed around 9 P.M. But, it’s a bit hard to stay awake for a canine to play at such a time.
When we consider the reasons we’ve discussed earlier, it needs to go out for peeing or pooping, it got enough sleep, feel hungry, having excess energy, feeding before bedtime can be the reasons.
Why does my puppy want to play at 3,4,5 am?
If your puppy wakes up around 3,4,5 Am having full of energy and tries to play, the reasons could be it’s a common behavior among puppies, it needs to pee or poop, maybe it feels empty, and seeking food.
In such a case, the puppy might be fully enthusiastic about having playtime when it encounters you in the early morning.
Things to be aware of.
Well, I guess now you are fully aware of the reasons that could influence this behavior and the possible solutions. However, there are a handful of facts you need to bear in mind.
Don’t punish or yell: If your puppy needs to play at night all of a sudden, don’t attempt to punish or yell at them instead of examining all the possible reasons that could affect this behavior and taking the right actions according to that.
Don’t try to play: As a response, if you try to play with your puppy during the middle of the night, note that it’s a kind of behavior encouragement. So, Don’t do that. If not, your puppy will continue to do that regularly.
Meet the vet: Don’t skip regular vet checkups. Meet your vet and discuss if there is anything to do with its diet or exercise schedule.
Conclusion
Puppies are playful. But it’s pretty strange when a puppy wants to play in the middle of the night. In this article, we’ve discussed 7 different reasons for this unusual trait and possible solutions you can take. Hope you found this helpful. Have a nice day.
