Its been just over 5 weeks with my first puppy, a lot of ups and downs, she's not a massive chewer which suprises me but for all the research I did I have to say it didn't prepare me enough at all, experience is everything. Things have settled but there are two areas I'm struggling with - waking up earlier every day and walking. Clover goes to sleep between 10-10.30pm, she was waking up around 5.30am which I know is good for a pup but for the last few weeks she's been barking to get up earlier and earlier and today was 4.20am. I take her out and she always does a wee and a poo then I put her back in her crate and she'll nap for between 30-60 minutes. Its dark in her room so its not the light that is making her get up early but I'm thinking she is learning that barking gets her out, I'd be tempted to ignore but she does appear to need the toilet and its very early in the morning to let her bark a lot. Option 1 is if I get up around 4am take her out for toiletting and then back into her crate and then slowly push back the time so she'll learn to wait for me to let her out. Option 2 is ignore her barking and see if she settles but the problem with this is that its asking for trouble with one set of neighbours in particular if they can hear her barking so early in the morning, we don't get on so that complicates things a bit. The second less major issue is the "Stop-and-sniff" policy she has adopted on her walks which applies to everything, I want her to sniff as I know that is vital for dogs but I would like to be able to get her to stop sniffing after a while and focus back on me. Any help and advice is much appreciated.
We had the exact same issue. Puppy was sleeping 7 hours for two weeks then starting waking earlier and earlier until only sleeping 3 hours. After looking on the forum and the labradorsite.com page we set the alarm for 15 mins before he last woke up. Then wake him up and take him out for wee, when like yours, he also normally does poo. Then back in crate with a chew toy. He chews for a few mins then goes to sleep. Then we have the alarm set for 530am, which is our usual alarm time and let him out then. Then he goes back in crate for up to two hours whilst I sleep in and slowly wake up. My partner is the one getting up! It worked brilliantly. Within two days he was fast asleep every time alarm goes off and we are now up to a six hour block. So I would say option one. That way you are the one telling him when to go out, and he can relax and sleep knowing he doesn’t have to ask to go out. I think that’s the principle. Hope you get some more sleep soon! We found it really dispiriting!
Thank you for your reply it made me feel better although its a shame you had to go through it as well. I think we were both spoilt by our respective pups sleeping through the night so early! What I've done for past 3 nights is keep her up until around 11.15pm, each night she sleeps till around 5.15am, out to the toilet then back to bed until 6.30am. I'm sure you know how big a difference it makes I was like you getting really dispirited with the earlier waking and it made it harder to cope with puppy demands for the rest of the day when you've been up since 4am!
I am thinking about the same tactic that you did and maybe waking her up around 5am so she doesn't have to bark and taking her out then and see how she settles back afterwards
I’d definitely recommend waking her up before she wakes up. Our puppy is now fast asleep until after the alarm. And so there is about 15 minutes for my partner to drag herself out of bed and let the puppy out before he starts fussing Hope it works!
