I've had some really helpful answers on this site previously so hoping for the same! My puppy is 8 months, gets 2 lovely walks a day one at 8am, one at 7.30 pm. We crare trained him patiently and after a few weeks he slept downstairs in the utility directly off our kitchen quite happily. We also slowly increased how long we left him during the day and again all went well. So, he wakes too early, not really early but the time he will be settled in his crate runs out after 7-7.5 hrs, not quite giving me enough sleep by the time I've got to bed making me a grump. It makes no difference what time we do anything as he seems to be on a timer. We only want 30 minutes more! We let him out immediately before bed in case he needs a pee. I suspect the solution is easy, we let him sleep up with us. He doesn't pee straight away when we go down, and we don't feed him for over an hour. I think he's just ready to see someone. BUT the reason I'm reluctant to let him sleep with us is that he now doesn't get left in the day, lockdown means there is usually 3 people working/ studying at home. We leave him for 1.5 hrs on a sunday while we have breakfast in our campervan hoping to prevent separation anxiety when we all go back to work and school. After his morning walk/swim he sleeps in his open crate for 2hrs, but we are in the house and room. So my worry = we let him sleep with us = less solitary crate time = crying in crate when we do need to leave him after pandemic. We worked so hard to get him happy in there I don't want to undo it. I appreciate there may not be an answer to this and that most dogs are enjoying unlimited company!
From my experience dogs are a bit like kids. They sleep in longer as they get older. Also they seem sensitive to the light mornings, I suspect in winter he will naturally sleep longer as its darker. I don't think there is an easy solution other than ignore him in a morning until you are ready, have him in your bed, or get up with him and enjoy an early coffee in your PJs. I went for the latter option and now Meg is 6, I get up before her !
Ah thank you. I had wondered if that might happen, casting my mind back to horribly early starts with the kids who now sleep in til goodness knows when. That is reassuring xxx
