I don't think I've even posted on here since we brought Buffy home! Things have been going so well. She is a little angel in the house and is mostly well-behaved on walks (bit of nervous barking but we are working through it). She is just coming up to 6 months old. The only thing that we would like to change is that she barks in the morning. She is crated downstairs and happily goes into her crate at bed time. She is clean all night long. Up until the clocks went back she was very quiet, but then I think the time change threw her and she picked up the habit of barking. We have never gone down to her when she's barking, or shouted; we've always just ignored it. She has her own alarm clock and we don't come downstairs until it goes off. We've tried setting it back a bit so it goes off before she wakes up and it works for a day or so but then she just wakes up earlier- 5:45 this morning!! I don't let her out as soon as I go downstairs and I don't make a huge fuss of her straightaway. She stops barking once the alarm goes off. Any other ideas on what I can do? Thank you. I don't expect a massive lie-in but 6:30 would be better than 5:45!
Hmmmmmm I had this for a while when Dexter slept downstairs ....I realised that it was the noise of the golf buggies starting up on the course at the end of our garden ....it was a whole cue chain for him.....hear buggies= sunrise=mum comes down = walk/breakfast time, yay! If I didn't appear as soon as the buggies started up he'd shout for me.....ignoring it and to be honest a few gruff 'Quiets' from my Husband fixed it....it looks like you've not been so lucky....could there be another noise that' she's associating her morning routine with that you've not realised ...boiler clicking on? Neighbours car starting?door closing somewhere? That might be something to identify. Dexter sleeps with us now ( not because of this issue) the first prayer call from the mosque goes off at 5.15 am....sunrise isn't until 6.15 but that first prayer starts him shuffling,the second one gets him really shuffling and when my 6 am alarm clock goes off he's like zebedee....all 4 paws leave the bed and he lands full force on my head.......ah so lovely thinking about my relaxing morning routine!
I think I would try not having an alarm clock at all , there seems to be a connection between it and barking . I would ditch the clock and see what happens for a couple of nights ?
Shadow started barking a bit in the mornings a while back. We realised it was because he was awake and trying to get Willow to play. It wasn't persistent barking, just the occasional one, so you'd just drop off to sleep again and, WOOF! Luckily for us, Willow doesn't "do" mornings, so he got nowhere with it and grew out of it eventually. He is usually awake and wandering around about 7:15, but he doesn't bark anymore. This morning, I woke them up from deep doggy dreams at 7:45
Thanks all. There was no barking this morning, I think maybe she was worn out from going to a Christmas fayre yesterday (she was very well-behaved, I was so relieved!). I wish I could figure out a pattern to it. At times she has woken up when my neighbour goes to work at 6.30, and other times she has slept through it. I don't really want to let her sleep upstairs because the cat sleeps on our bed and he is not too impressed with the dog. She wants to play, he doesn't! And she will steal his food given the chance. So he's not really a fan of Buffy.
Well, thanks to a bout of insomnia last night I was awake to hear what started the 5.20 barking this morning. It was the cat. I suspect this might have been the cause all along, but we are all used to his noise and just sleep through it. The cat and dog used to just ignore each other but things have been getting worse lately :/ I think I need to start a new thread!
