Good morning everyone. This my first post here but it seemed like the best place to go for advice. I have a 5 month old Chocolate Lab named Remington. He is very quick to learn and is completely house broken and lets out a good bark when he needs to relieve himself. The problem we are having, is that his day starts at an ungodly hour of the morning and he is up for the day. My wife and I both work and getting up at 5;30 am is impacting both of our sleeping schedules and by so, our work performance. Is there a way I can teach him to start his day later? Predawn walks are nice, and the two of us have seen some beautiful sunrises together, but it's wearing me out! His day starts with a quick walk outside followed by a meal and a longer walk after that. He then will busy himself with toys but will bark continually if he is placed back in his kennel. We cant leave him unsupervised in the house since he is still in his chewing phase and our furniture and, believe it or not, our walls have the scars to prove it.
This was something that caused me considerable concern, but the Good News is that it is something they seem to grow out of. I think Molly and I stopped greeting the dawn together when she was about seven months.
Hi and welcome to the forum. My Shadow went through this a few months back. He started barking for attention at around 5am. We set up a camera to see what was going on, and he was just awake and bored. He'd sometimes grab a toy and shove it in his sister's face to try to get her to play. It lasted about a month or six weeks and was pretty irritating! In the end, OH was getting up (when there was a pause in barking) and taking a blanket to the sofa. Shadow would cuddle up with him and go back to sleep. Eventually, he grew out of it. Yes, I can believe the walls. Willow was a great wall-chewer, and we still have a few patches of plaster to re-do!
You don't say when he goes in the crate for bed time but 8 straight hours seems to be my 4 month old limit with a couple of exceptions. Maybe later to bed? re: chewing -- buy Bitter Apple spray available on Amazon. Cheap insurance and for us it has most definitely worked. Now if we get him stop chewing on human flesh when excited.
Thanks for the ray of hope folks. He's usually created at 11:30. I'm hoping he will grow out of it as well. We are experimenting with a later am feeding to see if his early rise is food motivated. Ill post the results if there are any. As far as the bitter apple is concerned, he chewed the bottle. Hot sauce diluted in water and used in a spray bottle seems to be working. It irritates his nose and he losses interest in the item.
