Not All Dogs Want a Cushion

OK, OK, I get it.  Rhyn took several nights trying to tell us his thoughts on the matter.  We bought a nice thin crate mat for him, just enough cushion, snugly, I thought.  Fit the crate perfectly.  But:  Every night, about 1 in the morning, Rhyn would wake up and start telling us he was unhappy.  It was hardest on my husband, because he heard him first and would be the one to get up.  He thought he just needed to go out.  (Which, coincidentally, he did - or rather, he did his business, not that he needed to).

So, several nights of this interrupted sleep for everybody - dogs, humans.  And I started thinking about what had changed in our routine, because until very recently Rhyn was sleeping through the night with no problems.

Ah ha!  The crate mat!  Took it out yesterday and we had the first good night's sleep in several days.

So:  If you think your puppy must have a cushion in his or her crate, think again.  If he seems perfectly content with nothing in his crate but a few toys and maybe a small blanket, that's fine.  Some larger breed dogs with a thick coat of fur may only want a small blanket (for scrooshing up into a pillow) and the bare 'floor'.   Zoey likes a thick cushion in her crate; she's been known to even make 'nests' out of the blankets in her space. But her coat isn't as thick as Rhyn's.

It's easy to 'humanize' a dog and think they must surely want what we want, but this is not the case, as many of you know.

Rhyn puppy legs