We have an 18 month old golden lab that we have had from a puppy. She has always been an early riser but it is getting earlier and earlier. She is shut in the kitchen/diner overnight with a choice of her chair to 3 other beds to sleep in. Our other elderly dog sleeps in another room. She seems to take herself to bed early evening and we did think this was the issue. However we have tried an extra meal later on in the evening, walking her before bed, playing games with her in the evening etc. She was crate trained until about 1 year and then we stopped. NOTHING works. I struggle to sleep at the best of times and am not well so being woken up at 5am (if we're lucky - it's sometimes earlier) is not good for me. I have got to the point of saying it's me or the dog - it's that bad. Help!
Hi, did she sleep longer when crated ? What time does she go out last thing ? How does she wake you ? What does she want ? What have you tried? She should be able to wake later, so along the way she has learnt how to get up early. Lots of questions, sorry
Hi there. She was worse in the crate and barked to be let out and we tried ignoring etc but found she was better out of it. She seems to just want company. She often does not need to go out and just settles if we go down. She starts by jumping up at the door (door is getting damaged and I worry she will injure herself) and then she starts barking.. It's pitch black and the heating doesn't come so we are baffled. It's around 5am and she was going until about 7am. We deliberately don't feed her when we go down and ignore her. Nothing seems to work....
Hi We had a similar problem with Toby but I think he was a lot younger and I realise we made the mistake of feeding him first thing which you are not doing. I started using an alarm clock that he could hear. The first time I set it for a little before his wake up time and once he was used to the sound and me getting up in response to the alarm( 2-3 days) I moved it forward by 10-15 minutes each day. At the time my husband was commuting so 6.30 was the latest we were getting up but that was better than the 5am Toby wanted. Sadly he does not recognise weekends but we do get the occasional 7am before the crescendo of whines start at the stair gate to the kitchen(could you maybe change the door to a stair gate for a while so she doesn’t feel so shut in and protect the door. You can get taller ones that she wouldn’t jump!)
