Dear Labrador Site Friends! We love this site, it's such a life saver. We were hoping some kind people on this page might offer us some advice. Our Labrador is 18 months old. She's fabulous in every way. She took to house training pretty much immediately when she was a baby (we brought her home at 8 weeks old) and we've had no troubles since then. We took the approach of waking with her and taking her outside often throughout the day: no negative reinforcement, just praise and consistency. Over the last 3 weeks though we've had a problem. She began to consistently wake up barking to go out at 2-3am. She always sincerely needs to poop, so we listen to her and let her out. With 2 exceptions, she's done this every night since then. She had an upset tummy a few days into this spell, but it cleared within the same day. Initially we thought her upset tummy caused her sudden change but now we're not sure, or worry we've reinforced a new routine for her by accident. We've taken some advice from her lovely breeder, and have made some adjustments, but we're still having the problem and the tiredness is getting to us a bit. Can anyone share any wisdom? Has this happened to you? We have certainly been in a brief period of change when it comes to food, but not in any other way. We've changed a couple of things as a matter of course, and the rest in response to her sudden waking and after taking some advice. I'll put those details below. Do any of you think one of these changes might have upset her rhythm or caused her to need to go each night? Or have we done something else wrong we might not have seen? We'd be grateful for any insights and suggestions. For detail, in case anyone asks: 1. She eats three meals a day. 2. Change 1: 5 weeks ago we changed her food from the food she'd been eating since she was a baby. We needed to move to an adult food and the one we selected has good nutritional ratings, from our research. She used to have Royal Canin Maxi Puppy, and now she has Autarky White Fish. 3. Change 2: She used to have two small meals at 7am and 12.30pm, and then a larger at 6pm. On advice because of this waking, we've moved her largest meal to lunch and now give her her supper at 4.30pm latest. 4. Change 3: We give her a small fibre supplement each lunchtime to help some anal gland fullness and squirting. We started this 2 weeks ago on our vet's advice. 5. We always ensure that she goes out for a poop before bedtime. 6. We have taken her to the vet, who checked her, emptied her anal glands and gave her a blood test. She is generally well in herself. She gets lots of lovely exercise each day and is with her humans all day. Thank you in advance for any advice or wisdom! Or just some perspective, we're quite sleepy and it's not a great place to make good decisions lol xx
Hi Emma Is there a reason why you feed 3 times a day?Most people I know feed twice to suit their own routine. Mine is fed at 6 and 4. I just wonder if his gut would be better not constantly digesting food. The extra fibre will produce more stools too but you said it was happing before this. Have a close look at the ingredients in the new food and see if there is anything obvious that wasn’t in the old. Adult kibble is usually bigger than puppy so absorbs more water and I would guess more stools are produced. Hope you get more sleep soon!
Would also move to 2 equal feeds and make sure you take her out for a final toilet break at 11pm. That should give you the knowledge that he foes not need a toilet break during night. Then it is a matter of ignoring him for a few nights. also would have thought the adult food was long overdue good luck
Thank you J.D! Our vet urged us to keep her three meals a day, even though two are small, because she's such a madly hungry doggo and they felt regular food would help her appetite. It's not bothered us much, it's just part of our routine now you know? Do you think it would help to feed her less often? I will definitely check her new food and see how it compares. Hey TEE. We were a couple of weeks late moving her to adult food, according to the Royal Canin recommendations. We will try to put her out later but we go to bed early because we're up so early at the moment!
