Hello there. We have a 9 month old labrador and the first 6 months were bliss, he would go to bed in his crate at 23:00 and wke up at 07:00. However somewhere around the 7 month point he started waking up and squeaking in his crate because he wants to go to the toilet, as we all know a squeaky dog in the middle of the night is intolerable so we let him out in the garden where his does a full wee and poo. The only things that changed in his life during this time are switching his feeding times to two per day instead of three per day, and obviously puberty. I understand that a large breakfast and dinner instead of smaller breakfst lunch and dinners would disrupt his "rhythm", and we have tried adjusting feeding times from early to late and back again, but he still wakes up anywhere between 01:00 - 05:00. Any advice welcome! thanks
Hi Luc, Welcome to the forum! It's so frustrating when things go backwards isn't it! We've got a couple of articles that I think you might find helpful, with a few possible solutions: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/dog-wakes-up-too-early/ https://www.thelabradorsite.com/dog-barking-at-night/ Good luck and do let us know how you get along!
Hi Lucy thanks for the response! i've been a forum member for a while it's been very helpful the last few months I read the two articles you mentioned but the problem with our dog is definitly tied to going to the toilet. He literally goes out, does his business then goes back to sleep until morning. He just seems to have gotten partly out of the habbit of doing it during the day on walks, no matter how long, instead he just holds it in until the middle of the night. Last night i even walked him at 23:20 before bed, and he was awake at 01:00 squeaking to go out. I'm wondering what i can do to encourage him to go on the walk instead of in the night haha
