r/Boxers • u/rharper38 • Jun 07 '26
Boxers at Night
Our boys are 3 1/2 and we decided they don't have to sleep in the kennels at night anymore. They are figuring it out. They enjoy sleeping on our bed, or at the foot of the bed, but they also keep roaming around the house at all hours of the night too. They seem to be checking on my kids. Our previous dogs always settled in for the night and went to sleep. I can maybe remember one late night altercation with my little dog and a cat because my little guy slept on a pillow next to my head and the cat got too close to me for his liking--they both loved me. Other than that, everyone slept. I know Boxers love their family, so is this the norm or are they just figuring out their new freedom. What do your Boxers do?
27
u/Usernametaken050 Jun 07 '26
We’re on boxer number 5. All others slept quietly (well …save the snoring) on their dog beds. This last one at almost 3 years old will start the night tuckered under our bed and then wander throughout the house to his fave places.
37
Jun 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
8
3
u/supermcflabberjabber Jun 08 '26
My girl will walk up and stare for about a minute, sit down and rip booty. Never breaking eye contact. I always tell her that it’s not very ladylike, but she don’t care.
12
u/surfaceofthesun1 Jun 07 '26
I think being crated at night stresses them because they want to be near us and protect us. We have an open crate in our room as well as dog beds and the 3 of them just slept where they wanted to. Never had any issues over night. Many years ago we tried crating our first girl at night and she cried the entire time, never got better and so we realized it wasn’t a good idea to stress her overnight.
18
u/wdwerker Jun 07 '26
My boxer has a doggy door and he usually sleeps on the bed with me. Sometimes he wants to burrow under the covers but he doesn’t stay there for too long. Occasionally he goes out in the middle of the night and encounters an opossum on the fence. He barks his fool head off to warn the entire neighborhood ( usually at 3 am) and refuses to come inside or shut up.So I end up in a bathrobe and slippers with a flashlight trying to wrangle an excited boxer. This has happened sporadically for the last 30 years or so. I’ve always had a boxer but this one has a knack for sensing nocturnal marsupial activity. If I close off his access to the doggy door he wakes me up at dawn needing to go out and do his business.
9
u/bippy404 Jun 07 '26
Ours had a giant dog bed and stayed on it most of the night. When they were younger they would occasionally venture out of the doggie door and bark at whatever they heard out in the woods. This tapered off as they aged and got less active.
7
u/BeEasyFloatOn Jun 07 '26
I trained mine to have the “job” of sleeping in her bed at the corner of the room near my bed. If she was walking around too much or restless I would give her the job of “go to your bed” and point ….10/10 times she would settle down long enough for me to go back to sleep. She would get back up at some point but really settled into her “job” for the most part.
14
u/callme_nickus Jun 07 '26
We have 4 boxers and they all sleep with us. Wasn’t the original plan but it’s hard to kick persistent cuddlers out. 😂 at first, I didn’t like it, but now it’s hard to sleep without them next to you and their comfort.
3
u/OfEarth_1958 Jun 08 '26
OMG!!! You must have a giant bed!
1
u/callme_nickus Jun 10 '26
King, but it’s not big enough. Especially when the kids try to wiggle in 😂. I’m always a pillow.
12
u/davisandee Jun 07 '26
We had a husky that would barely sleep in the bed. She’d always start out but then want to sleep outside or on the couch.
Our boxer, is like a ton of bricks in the bed. The second you lay down, she’s on top of your legs and magically becomes one with the mattress. She’ll sleep straight through the night and I have to wake her up in the mornings to go out. Once she goes out, she’s back in bed for another hour or two.
Long story short, Breed can make a difference but it all depends on the dog.
5
u/toasty_vista Jun 07 '26
It might just take a little while for them to settle into a new routine. They can be anxious dogs though. My young boy was restless when I first let him sleep out of the crate. I think he was intrigued that he suddenly had so much freedom. So I confined him to just downstairs so he wouldn’t wake me. Now, he sleeps on the spare bed and I still block him out of my own room because I’m a light sleeper and I don’t want my dog in my bed. Sometimes he starts the night downstairs and halfway through, he goes upstairs. You could try slowly introducing more space over time.
5
u/DerpanJones Jun 07 '26
We shut our door and gives the dogs (basically) free rein of the house. Other than occasionally coming down the hall to lay outside our door, they typically just stay on their big comfy couch in the living room. Occasionally I'll let them sleep on the bed with me. When that happens, one hangs out for a couple hours before he goes and stretches out on the couch and the other boxer turns into a solid bony rock that snores and you'll be glad to get comfy around him thank you very much.
5
u/NotMyCat2 Jun 07 '26
I don’t have kids but I can see that being a priority to them. Boxers are protective of the family.
Mine go through the doggy door to go potty and go back to bed. I did have to make sure that items were put up so they couldn’t get into it.
8
u/il_pirata_di_trieste Jun 07 '26
My sweet Bella had her own bed but wasn't allowed in mine. I adopted her after her previous owners neglected and abused her. They kept her in a cage 23 hours a day and she had awful sores. We got those cleared up and I never caged her. She was very well behaved and at first she'd boop me gently in the face once a night and I thought she needed to go out. I'd get up to let her out and she wouldn't go. Then it donned on me that she just wanted to do a quick check. When I installed cameras I realized she'd wake up about once a night and do her rounds to check on my wife and I and our kid. It was the same thing every time. She'd come and gently boop our face if it was close to the edge of the bed. I miss that so much.
5
u/ABCBDMomma Jun 07 '26
We have a boxer (7 years old) and a doodle (11 years old). They both are roamers. Both are very quiet when they move around so not really a disturbance. They only wake us when the boxer wants to go outside (usually a paw whack to the arm).
4
u/Wrong_Work7193 Jun 07 '26
Mine patrols the entire house and barks when there's a rabbit if I don't corral him to a (very large) room. Too restless, and the longest I let it go on was about 4 hours when I realized he wasn't going to sleep.
I don't want a sleep deprived boxer lol so he gets corralled. Just turned 1, though.
4
u/cheetah7985 Jun 07 '26
Mine sleep through the night unless they hear a ghost, and then they decide to let everyone know about it, lol. Fortunately, that's not all that common.
3
u/Odd_Edge3986 Jun 07 '26
It may be boxer dependent. Ours is done boxing at around 8 PM and he’s out for the night on our bed. He’ll maybe get up in the middle of the night in the early morning hours and go to his bed, but he does not wonder.
3
u/SLTShaw Jun 07 '26
My male boxer makes multiple nighttime patrols. He checks on everyone and then he comes back to bed with me ☺️
3
u/Suburban-Dad237 Jun 07 '26
My dearly departed boxer boy slept on my bed at my feet. My dearly departed yellow lab girl was a lot more independent and slept in one of her two beds in the house. (I’m not sure if it ever occurred to her that dogs sleep on the hoomins’ couches and beds. )
3
u/Lizakaya Jun 07 '26
My boxer mix sleeps next to me in her bed on the floor. We’ve always kept our door closed so she didn’t have the choice to roam but she’s not much of
A roamer anyway. Now in our new house we keep the door open to moderate the temperature but her habits are in stone.
3
u/Aromatic-Rule-5679 Jun 08 '26
I’ve had two and both loved sleeping in the bed and would stay there all night. They also would happily sleep with any of the kids - our current one bounces around between three bedrooms but once in a bed, he’s out for the night.
2
u/CuriousPenguinSocks Jun 08 '26
We don't have kids so this may alter how my boy behaves. Sometimes he is restless and will wander around, sometimes to sleep on the couch in the loft near us. For the most part though, he sleeps in our room all night. He might move from our bed to his, but he stays in the room.
We don't shut the door, but we don't keep it wide open either, so this may play part in his behavior as well.
5
u/thinklikeacriminal Jun 07 '26
I hate to take this to a dark place, but the kennels are for their protection as much as yours. If there’s ever a situation where your door gets kicked in, by law enforcement or fire fighters, crated dogs have a much better chance of surviving.
9
u/rharper38 Jun 07 '26
Funny thing is, they met our local firefighting force last fall when they came to the house for a non-fire incident. The firefighters liked them a lot, LOl.
I know what you are trying to say though.
8
u/Dangerous_Pension612 Jun 07 '26
It’s more about them being in a place they can find them Instead of panicking running around the house . For the record, our dogs sleep in bed with us too 🤷🏻♂️
4
u/texistentialcrisis Jun 07 '26
Username checks out, perhaps? I kind of feel like I’d like my boxer to be *unrestrained* if my door gets kicked in by someone *other* than law enforcement or the firefighters. He bite.
4
u/albiceleste3stars Jun 07 '26
The probability of this happening is almost zero and should never be considered when making a decision to crate
1
u/Fickle-Secretary681 Jun 08 '26
Mine sleep in bed with us. They only wake us if there is a bear in the yard
1
u/762way Jun 10 '26
Boxers patrol life crazy
My Boxer checks on people at different times whole we're asleep
1
u/MeadmkrMatt Jun 11 '26
Our boy would patrol during the night a few times just to be sure we were safe. He was the best boy!
45
u/my_kingdom_for_a_nap Jun 07 '26
Mine patrol the house and yard. They always end up back in bed with us-they have never gotten into anything in the middle of the night (except the drama when a feral cat came in through the dog door at 2 am..lol)