Hello LF Crew, For some reason, in the last week or so our 1 year old Choc lab has suddenly starting whining and crying to wake us up at c.5:30-6am. Prior to the last week or so, she's been sleeping through quietly until one of us comes into her at 6:30/7, maybe even 8/8:30 on weekends. During the week it's not so much of an issue as I just get up to do some work and take her out for her morning walk about 7/7:30 anyway but on the weekend, it's a really annoying as we'd like even a little lie to 8/8:30. We've tried coming in and resettling her, we've tried ignoring her... Nothing seems to be working. It's like she just wants to be in the same room as us because as soon as one of us goes into her, she stops and settles down. She doesn't want the toilet or anything..its literally like she's decided that because she's awake, we're going to be awake. This didn't even happen when she was a puppy so it's really come out of the blue. Anyone had similar or have any suggestions on how to nip it in the bud? Any & all ideas would be welcomed.
Hi @Coogs86 Have you recently started going to bed earlier? Is sunlight coming into her sleeping area earlier? Black out curtains? I can't think of anything to teach a dog that a weekday is different to a day on the weekend. Routines don't work that way, at least for dogs. All I can think of is use an alarm that she can hear. Teach her that the ringing means she can get up. Because with the ringing you get up and come to her. On the weekend you could set it to ring later. So how to do it? Alarm rings. You get up and wake her up. At the beginning you will need to set it earlier than what she is waking. It's the alarm that wakes her. Repeat and repeat to develop it as a cue. Now start setting it later and later. Say 15 minutes every third day. It's going to take a bit of training.
Hi @Michael A Brooks, thanks for the reply - Nothing has changed in terms of us or her going to bed earlier. A couple of nights this week I've even stayed up a bit later with her and even taken her out for a later walk to see if that would help but we still got this new early morning wake up call she's discovered. The days getting longer/mornimgs getting brighter might have a role to play but we do have heavy curtains in the living room where she sleeps, not black out but they do keep out a lot of the light. Completely agree re: there being no way to train a dog on the differences between a weekday and a weekend. It's just odd that it's started suddenly the past week or so because she never previously had any problem sleeping quietly or just waiting for us to come in and let her out in the mornings so I don't know what's triggered this. I like the idea of trying to train her to an alarm - We do use an alarm midweek for ourselves anyway and I'm sure she knows when that goes off that we'll be into her. It just seems that she's started beating the alarm to it and decided to wake us up an hour earlier. Might try resetting the alarm early as you suggest and also combing it with a small treat occasionally when she does wait for us to come into her rather than her waking us up... She's been pretty good to train generally so hopefully this is just a phase and we can get her back to her old habits
I think you just have to ignore this behaviour. If you are SURE she doesn't need the toilet and this is just a habit, you've reinforced it by responding to it. The first few times she did it, you probably did leap up and think she needed the toilet, or reassurance or company or was ill... And now she has learnt that doing this gets you up - you responding, has reinforced her behaviour. The only way to get rid of the behaviour, is to ignore it. I'd suggest closing your bedroom door before you go to bed - but at the very least, you have to 'fake' like you haven't heard her and just lie there awake, ignoring her. Don't even talk to each other or cough or sniff or do anything which shows that you are awake, as this will reinforce her... You just have to lie there until it stops. Each day it will happen again, but for a shorter amount of time - until eventually it stops completely. Such is the extinction burst...
There’s always a bit of adjustment as the days get longer. I don’t know where you live but we experience this every year when the clocks go ahead and the sun comes up earlier. We ignore mostly but if it gets really bad we just extend the time we get up to let him out by 5-10 mins each day for a week and it usually levels out fine. But as already said it can be harder to rectify once reinforced.
