i have a beautiful 14 week old yellow lab. He's a great dog and training is going great. He's house broken and crate trained. The one problem I'm having is I take him out about 10:00-10:30pm before bed. He's been getting up around 3:45-4:00am every morning. I take him out and he does go but then he wants to play. Is this just being a puppy or is there a way to break this habit? TIA
It sounds like puppy behaviour. He's not yet got the message that the night is sleep time so he needs to learn it. In your situation I'd put him back in his crate as soon as he's done his business. No play, fuss or interaction that he could interpret as a reward for playing.
Definitely no interaction when you take him out. Although Wispa's much older, she sometimes wakes too early, so if she's standing up in her crate I let her out, but don't talk to her or touch her at all, then shut her back in her crate with a Kong smeared with a tiny bit of peanut butter. If she's still lying down I tell her to go to back to sleep and leave her in her crate. It usually works! It may well be that your puppy still needs to go out, but if there's no interaction he'll soon get bored with asking if he doesn't really need to. Good luck!
