My lab turned 1 year old in December and almost every night still wakes up between 2 and 4 in the morning to pee and poop. I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue and if it will ever stop. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get her out of this habit?
Welcome to you. My Mollie, six months old, was waking up too early (not as early as yours!). So I left it a bit longer - just five minutes at a time - until I went down to her. We have now made it to 6:45 but I'm aiming for 7am ...
That must be exhausting! Have you tried changing her food? With some foods you need to feed less quantity, so dogs produce less poo!
We are 11pm and 7am now. We had a baby also so were up all night anyway so we did what Boogie did also, except we added 10 minutes and didn't give in. They can hold it at that age. Now he goes all night but if we miss the 11pm for some reason then it's 3am paw jab to the nose. Lol
In town, we have a dog door into the back yard, so they can go out anytime they want to, but they will usually sleep as long as we do. We leave both dogs in the cabin all day sometimes when we ski, and they aren't desperate to go out when we get home.
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions! I'm going to try putting her off for 5 or 10 minutes each night. I've also been trying a short evening walk when I am able to which seems to be helping as well.
We have to get Duggan moving on his last bathroom break of the night before he actually goes, but he always does. He actually wees on command. Lol. He's also a bit scared of all the animal smells in the yard so he comes running back after he's done his business. We use that as a chance to keep his Recall strong by using the whistle and treating.
How late is her last food and water? I cut off food at 6:30 and water is sparse (unless it's hot or we have a long walk). Sunny
We feed her dinner around 5pm. She doesn't always eat it all at once. It would be hard to feed her any earlier on the days we work. Water is always out but she does not drink excessively.
Some nights we have to drag Maggie out of the house to go before bed but once she is up, she wants to play lol!
