I have a 10 week old lab puppy.. I was putting her to bed at 9’pm and she was getting up for pee break between 1-3 pm.. I was exhausted taking her out for per break.. after talking with my breeder I put her down for bedtime at 10 pm and she gets up at 5 am. Then she pees and poops and breakfast at 6 am. I try to put her back in the crate between 5-6 am (after she has peed and pooped) but she started barking.. I have put chew toys for her. My question is that should I let her bark (after I have taken her out for a washroom break) until I am ready to wake up at 6 am? Also where is the ideal place for a crate? Right now I have put it in my master bedroom.. thank you
Is the master bedroom your bedroom? If so that's fine. If not, put the crate in your bedroom - preferably right by your bed. You won't need to do this for long, but it will give you valuable insight into what's going on and it will also reassure your puppy to be that close to you, so you will get more sleep and that sense of security in the crate will remain when you move it further away. Put the puppy to bed as late as possible, is my advice - the later you put them to bed, the later the last wee is, and the more of the night you will get through. So, whenever the last human in the house is going to bed, they should take the pup out to toilet and crate the pup. The getting-up side of things, you need to be setting your alarm clock to get up BEFORE she has barked. If she barks and you get up in response to that, you are reinforcing the barking by responding to it. Yet she may really need the toilet. So to avoid this situation, think about what time of night she generally wakes up - sounds like 5am - and set your alarm for BEFORE that, so 4.15am. Get up, take her out to toilet - and then put her back in the crate until you want to get up. You can then ignore any noise from her, because you know she is empty and has just been outside, and you are right by her side in bed, so it's not separation anxiety - it's just 'I want to get up now' noise - which you can safely ignore... Keep doing this for several nights, then adjust the alarm clock to be 30mins later. Keep it like that for 2-3 nights and again adjust it later... and so on.
Cooper would bark sometimes when she came back in in the early morning. My wife let her come up on the bed, to keep her quiet. She's been there ever since.. We are doing a BR remodel soon and it will have to accommodate a King Sized bed.
