This might be a bit daft to think of but experienced lab owners please, how do pups react if at all to the clock changeover coming next week. Hero has been sleeping from 8pm, toilet break about 10.30 then through till 6.15 am when my alarm goes off since 12 weeks old so he has a really solid nighttime routine. Not sure if pups have body clock like us which needs time to adapt to extra hour. Know our cats used to and wake us up at stupid o'clock for their breakfast. Have thought about using next week to adjust his mealtimes and bed time gradually if that will help. Just not sure if it's the right thing to do. The puppy thing is all a learning curve for us. Previous dogs and cats have always been adult rescue animals. I struggle with the extra hour for a few weeks myself so visions of crazy pup barking at 5.15 in morning cos mum won't get up.
I remember seeing a joke online ages ago, about how the clocks going back means a lie in for everyone except people with kids and dogs! I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you, because this will be my first clock change with a puppy too, but adjusting their daily routine in the days before hand is an interesting idea! *eyeballs both puppy and human child* So good luck to us both, and let us know next week how you get on!
I don't have any advice I'm afraid, but this is one of the reasons that we don't have a rigid routine. The dogs get up when we do, anytime between 5 and 8 am and go to bed some time between 7 and 11pm. In the morning they are usually fed within an hour of getting up and in the evening they are fed at 'dark o'clock'. We always feed when it gets dark as it when we are home as we have livestock to tend to. In summer this may be as late as 10pm and in winter as early as 5pm. Obviusly it is a gradual change throughout the year and we don't have anyone demanding feeding at a specific time.
I'm with @5labs on avoiding a very strict routine - I don't have a choice as I work shifts including nights and my partner sometimes works from home and sometimes works away. So breakfast and first walk can be anywhere between 7 and 9. We've not had a problem with clock changes but I can see that could be more of an issue with a small puppy.
Thank you for the replies. I understand that not everyone has rigid routines, so changes are not necessarily an issue. We don't tend to be rigid is it only with the nightime and feeding, simply because I have to have routines for medication and Hero has a set routine with feeding because he had a lot of problems with sensitive stomach problems and the vet suggested a fixed routine which worked better. Hero just seems to have settled himself into the nightime one quite happily and I guess I'm just a bit worried it's going to really unsettle him. He's a fox red, rambunctious, over excitable and highly strung and his puppy trainer suggested routines to help him which with a lot of hard work and consistency he is so much more settled and contented while being able to be a normal bouncy puppy. How I wish I didn't have to live with routines....it would be freedom
I have a fairly fixed routine as I have kids, and like having young kids pups take a while to adjust. You just have to move to current time and they adapt after a while...it’s a nuisance to be honest but no real way round it.
Hi,the week before clocks change we shift our dogs feeding time by 15 mins early or late for 4 days to gently move her feeds in line with the new time
Our dogs have always been flexible. We and they are very inconsistent about going to bed or getting up, so daylite savings time is a non issue for them.
It is much harder when you are in a family with a fixed wake up routine during the week. I fully expect to be woken up around 5am on Sunday and it will take a few days for Toby to go back to waiting for the 6 am alarm to go off. However at the other end of the day he will be taken by surprise when he gets his dinner as he won’t be expecting it nor will he have been staring me out for the last hour(at least) Different households have different routines and dogs seem to adapt. Just wish they would leave the clocks as they are for our sake let alone the dogs!
Up at 6.30....our 5 month old Arnie had been consistently sleeping till around 7.30 but then of course the time change happened and I had forgotten all about it so didn’t start any adjustments....he’s now back asleep but of course I’m wide awake - yay!
Hey ho...the adjustments worked for Hero ok. Just silly me that woke up at stupid o'clock. Guess the dog copes better than me then
