Hello, I have a 10 month old lab called Jessie which we have had from 7 and a half weeks. We have used a crate for periods in the day and all night from day one, which has been working out fine. She is an active puppy, being from both working parents, however through regular puppy training and some 1:1 sessions with a gundog trainer, we have learnt to manage her better and she is a much calmer puppy now than she was some months ago! I have also picked up some useful tips through this forum which have been very helpful! She willingly goes into her crate at night, however every morning at any time between 0600 and 0630, she starts to bark. We tend to leave her to bark (difficult though as we live in semi detached house, however the neighbours have never complained) until we get up at around 0650-0700. When she hears us coming down the stairs she stops barking - we then tend to potter around the kitchen ignoring her for a few minutes before we open the crate up. During this time when we are in the kitchen, she is as good as gold. We let her out of the crate, she greets us and then she used to walk to the back door ready to be let out for her morning toilet break. Her bladder control is now excellent and she does not tend to want to go out straight away so we figured her barking now is not because she needs a toilet break. As we have to get up between 0650 and 0700 for the kids to go to school and for my wife and I to go to work, I feel that we are rewarding her barking with us coming down to her in the morning, however there isn't really another option as we all need to get to work/school. At weekends, the pattern is the same however we do leave her to bark longer, sometimes up to 60 mins, but there isn't really a let up and then we get up as we don't want to upset the neighbours! Has anyone else had this experience and is there anything different that we should be doing? Thanks very much for reading this Paolo
Hi and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately I can't offer much advice on early morning barking as it's not something I've experienced with Juno, although I'm sure other members will be able to offer lots of advice and support, but to me it sounds as if you are doing everything well. One question for me is what does Jessie do if you don't appear in the kitchen. You mention that she stops barking when she hears you on the stairs, what happens if you don't go downstairs but go back upstairs? Fully appreciate that it may not be a problem during the week but I refer to decide when I'm going down stairs, not have the time set by my pup.
My friend's 2 year old Lab stays with us often and he has this early morning barking thing too. When he's with us we make sure he goes for a longish lead walk at 9pm - this helps a lot. We realised that he tends to sleep really deeply from 8:30 pm - so he'd probably had more than enough sleep by 6am! He still wakes early - but more like 7:30, which is civilised. (My two have never done this, but I'm not sure what we did differently really)
My Penny used to be a lot like this, though it wasn't barking but whining and moaning. She did it for a long time and I just couldn't get her out of it, although the most effective thing I managed was to wait before going downstairs until there was a pause. At the moment your pup is probably thinking that it's her barking that is bringing you downstairs and that's what she wants. Try it for a few days and see what happens - wait for a pause and count to five, if still silence then go downstairs, if she starts barking again then wait. Have you investigated to see whether there is something that is happening at that time in the morning that is waking her up? Is there an alarm going off or noises upstairs to clue her in that someone will be down to see her soon? Penny used to get set off by one of us getting up to go to the toilet as she knew that preceded me coming down to let her out. Another big one was my alarm going off - I used to snooze it for half an hour but that first time it went off would set Penny off whining so I set it ten minutes earlier just to confuse her, and it did work for a while at least! The biggest thing that stopped this however was when we allowed her free roam of the kitchen overnight. She will still whine in the mornings now sometimes - she comes and sits by the babygate and whines and paws at it. I go downstairs and tell her to 'go to bed' and she will go and get back into her bed without a peep until it's time to get up. This only happens occasionally now though. Have you tried just going down stairs when she starts and saying something like 'quiet' and then leaving again? You might have to do a bit of training to teach her what it means though. Also do you have any sort of cover over the crate? It could be that she's waking early because it's getting light outside now and she thinks it's time to get up. I used a crate cover and it was brilliant, I would highly recommend one. I got mine really cheaply from petplanet.
My Bella at 7 months does this on and off but has for last few mornings consecutively at 6.30am!!! No idea why now?!? I wait for quiet then go and potter and let her out of the kitchen , at the weekend I went and told her no and to get in her bed which she did but started again 30 mins later. Im wondering if it's to do with lighter mornings ...
Thank you all for your suggestions! Have tried yours MaccieD this morning but after 2 minutes back upstairs she started again. I am just about to try the walk as per your suggestion Boogie, I will let you know if it makes a difference, although at the moment, we are still restricting our walk times until she's 12 months. You have a lot of suggestions Penny+Me, thank you! We thought it was something triggering her barking, the only thing we could think of was the boiler coming on however we switched that off for a few mornings and did not make a difference. We do cover the crate but not completely, we can try that......she has been doing this barking lark for a good 4-5 months, so even when it was dark during Jan/Feb. we have started to leave her occasionally in the day to have free roam in half of the kitchen if we pop to the shops for half hour and we have talked about doing it for the night, we haven't quite been brave to try it yet!! I will let you know how I get on, however, we are off on holiday next week and our friend who will be looking after Jessie, will be enjoying the early morning wake up calls!!
Hey ilovepizza I actually have the same issue, except my little man is only 11 weeks old tomorrow. Took weeks for him to only wake up once a night and now without fail wakes anywhere from 545-615am. Someone told me to set my alarm for 10mins earlier then he wakes up and let him out before he starts barking and progressively set the alarm a bit later each day until you get to a more reasonable wake up time and eventually he will get used to the fact that he doesn't have to bark to be let out and unassociates it apparently. I only just heard this advice so haven't had a chance to try it properly as the last two mornings I haven't set it early enough before he starts his barking but I'm going to try! If you find something that works though let me know! I share your pain!
just thought I would update, we came back from holiday just over a week ago, Jessie stayed with a friend of ours and her chocolate lab and since she has been back, she has stopped barking in the morning! Our friend suffered many mornings being woken up at 5-530 however it has all changed back here at home. We had started to include a short walk about 2100 before we went on holiday which seemed to have delayed her barking start time by 10-15 mins, however now we are able to get up at 0650, quickly get changed and get down to her without her starting to bark. Sorry blacklabby, I didn't get a chance to try your idea!
