Hi all, Ziggy is now 5 months old, toilet trained and sleeping well.....well, if you call waking any time from 4.30-5am.We ignore the barking and set an alarm to be up from 6am however, this doesn't stop him barking. We go to bed from 11pm so, I feel he should be fine to go to 6-6.30am, would you agree? How do I stop the early morning wake up call?
Hi @Sarah&Ziggy Although all dogs are individuals the rough rule is that a young dog can hold its bladder for one hour for every month of age. Consequently by that rule you are asking too much of Ziggy to go from 11.00 to 6.00 without a toilet break. Still some early mornings. Sorry When you get up at 6.00 am does he REALLY race to go outside to urinate? If so, it suggests you really do need to get up at least once during the night. When he can last longer in the crate then you can move the time he wakes up by using the following plan. Set your alarm at say 5.00 before the dog wakes up. Go to his crate and wake him up. Take him out to toilet. Come back inside and put him back in the crate. Sit with him until he falls to sleep. Do that say 4 or 5 times, or more depending on how habitual his is early waking. Then set the alarm for 5.15 before he wakes up. Go to his crate and wake him up. Take him out to toilet. Come back inside and back in the crate. Sit with him until he falls to sleep. Do that say 4 or 5 times. Then set alarm for 5.30. and GRADUALLY so on and so on, until you have moved his waking time to say 6.30 or later if you prefer!. The idea is to keep waking him up before he has an opportunity to bark. But there is a cunning plan at work. You are gradually moving the waking time to something sensible, at least for you.
It's so frustrating when they wake up early, isn't it! Michael's given some great advice above, and you can also find more information dealing with early waking in this article on the main Labrador Site. Let us know how you get along!
Yes, as Michael says, you need to set your alarm for before he wakes up - dogs are creatures of habit and get very programmed to do things at certain times of day. Waking up is one of them. So you need to break the habit ASAP by taking him out before he has made noise and gradually making the alarm later as he is able to manage...
I have the same issue with my almost 5 month old lab. He was sleeping about 7 hours straight through the night...from 9:30pm - 4:30am, and now he's waking up 2 times a night to go out. He pees at the first one (around midnight) and the 2nd one to pee & poo at 4:30am. He is crate trained and sleeps in our bedroom. He scratches the cage to let us know he wants out....sometimes we can ignore him and he is quiet for about 30 minutes but starts the scratching again. We have 3 cages throughout our house, so should I try having him sleep at night in our downstairs cage, so as to not hear him scratching the cage to wake us at the midnight waking? We do let him out right before retire at 9:30pm. Just a side note...He's pretty much cut out his afternoon lunch, although this has just started happening. So we feed him 1-1/2 cups in the morning, usually not until 6:45am and then 1-1/2 cups at around 6:00pm. He does get treats throughout the day and he goes outside and snow shoes with us daily for about 30-45 minutes. We work daily with commands too. He has sit, stay, high 5 & down pretty well under wraps. We are working on 'come'. Any help would be appreciated, as the lack of sleep is taking a toll on us 'old folks'! Thanks!
