Part 3: When Bedtime Didn’t Go to Plan
Behaviour Spotlight – Decompression
Before expecting too much from a rescue dog, it's important to remember one thing—they don't know they've been rescued. They only know that everything familiar has disappeared.
You may have heard of the 3-3 rule. While every dog is different, many rescue dogs take around:
- 3 days to recover from the journey and begin decompressing.
- 3 weeks to start learning their new routine.
- 3 months to truly feel safe and at home.
Preparing for bed
We thought bedtime would finally give Lily a chance to rest. We'd set up a cozy crate in a quiet area of the house with soft bedding and fresh water nearby. We'd been told Lily was crate trained, so we thought this would be the perfect place for her to settle after such a big day.
The moment the crate door closed, Lily became distressed. She dug and pushed frantically at the crate, scraping her nose in the process. She whined constantly, panted, paced and was completely unable to settle.
Watching her scrape her nose against the crate was the moment we realised this wasn't simply a dog protesting at bedtime. Everything about her behaviour suggested she was panicking. Despite everything she'd been through that day, sleep never seemed to come. Our biggest concern quickly became her safety—we were worried she was going to cause herself further injury trying to escape.
We were torn
Part of us wondered whether Lily simply needed more time to adjust. The other part knew this wasn't just frustration. Lily needed something different from us.
We tried several approaches over those first few nights. We took turns staying downstairs with her until she settled, had Loki sleep downstairs for company, and even brought our mattress downstairs so that she was able to see us at night.
It became clear that Lily wasn't being stubborn or trying to "test boundaries." Everything about her behaviour suggested she was frightened and overwhelmed.
Everything familiar had disappeared in less than 24 hours, and we’d unknowingly asked her to cope with yet another unfamiliar situation.
It reminded us that behaviour is communication.
Once we stopped asking, "How do we get her to stop?" and started asking, "What is she trying to tell us?" everything began to change.
Those first few nights left us exhausted and questioning whether we'd made the right decisions. It was clear that something needed to change, we didn't yet know what.
The answer wasn't to ask more of Lily.
It was to ask less.