Help old dog create new nighttime routine

We have two black labs, a 5-year-old in excellent health and a 12-year-old with bad back legs. He is able to walk and go outside on his own, but has difficulty getting up on a particular couch he likes to sleep on. All day long he sleeps elsewhere, but many times during the night he will bark until we come down and help him onto the couch. Then he leaves the couch and sleeps on the floor until he wants to get up on the couch again. We have removed the cushion from the couch, and it is a navigable step for him, yet he refuses to do it without waking one of us to come down and help his butt up. How can we break him of this habit? We haven’t slept through the night in months.

Animals take advantage of any situation they can that makes their lives easier. The problem here is that your dog is a senior with bad legs so his calls for help at night are valid and cannot be ignored. If he could navigate his way on and off the couch without your help, he most certainly would, and you cannot let him stress his joints too much at this point. Since he is comfortable sleeping in other parts of the house during the day, then the idea here is to no longer let sleeping on the couch at night be an option.

A drastic way to accomplish this would be to turn the couch on its side every night for a couple of weeks. A less dramatic way to do this is to get him a big new dog bed that is placed near the couch at night. Cover the couch with a plastic car cover that you can keep folded near it in the living room. The car cover will make the couch an uninviting place to sleep at night so the dog will then focus on the nearby new bed.