After trying for more than a month (35 days to be precise) to get Skye to sleep inside at night, we decide to finally herd her in the house and close the door. It worked and we had our first full night of sleep without interruption!
Here is what we did it.
6:30pm: Reduce the yard with temporary fencing.
8pm: Give her her meds (sertraline, gabapentin, and trazodone) and reduce yard further.
9pm: Prepare 2 licking mats in the living room and have a bowl of yummy treats ready in the office. Put up an x-pen by the door and guide Skye inside with pig boards.
As you can see, she immediately went inside into her safe corner behind the chair in the living room. We joined her for about an hour before going to bed. She stayed for 10 minutes in the corner and after a big sigh, she went to the lick mats. She then went back to the office to check the door, and found the high value treats we put on the ground. That probably opened her appetite and she ate her dinner. She came back in the living room and eventually settled down on her mat and slept there for the whole night.
7am: When she heard us wake up, she came in our bedroom with her tail wagging. I followed up to the back door and opened it.
I didn't like we had to push her inside, but I think her stress was really short, much shorter than any of the other nights when she felt the need of guarding the yard. This morning, she is well rested (so are we!) and we played and even were able to do some training games!
I hope we can do that again tonight! (finger crossed)