Early Riser

[mollymoocow]

Our 11 week old pup is fantastic in every way but he does seem to have an annoying habit of waking up at 6am and making sure that everyone else is awake with him!!

He has a crate (open) that is kept in the kitchen with the door open and a stairgate across it. Is there anything we can do to try and get him to sleep a little later?

We have tried leaving him a little longer each day before we go down to him, and always make sure he is quiet and calm before we release him from the kitchen but so far nothing seems to be working.

Any advice would be appreciated as everyone getting a little overtired and cranky at the moment

Hi Mollymoocow - do you take him out during the night to pee?
If not, try getting up about 3-4am and taking him outside. Our little man needed this until he was about 15-16 weeks and from then he was good from about 10.30 until 7.30ish.
We also close him in his crate, as this means he will try his best to hold on until we let him out.
HTH

Thanks, he has a dog flap and takes himself outside if he needs to, or just uses the kitchen floor, so not sure if that is the problem but will certainly give it a go!

do you have a cover for your crate? We found that covering the crate with a throw ala parrot cage worked a treat. I had exactly the same problem, but now she doesnt get up until 7ish which is fine with me.

Or just wait until March when the clocks go forward again then it will be 7am instead of 6.
Sorry, couldnt help myself.

ha ha Jax!!

Unfortunately he does have a heavy cover on it and the room stays dark because we also have heavy blinds.

Oh well, it was worth a try....

Hi Our new pup was a four thirty riser so we set the alarm clock to go off at first at that time and then made sure we got her straight out of the crate. then bit by bit we set the alarm clock to go off later and later until we got to six thirty( This is ideal for us). She slept outside our room in a closed crate and I know that some days she woke up sooner than this but she just played until the alarm went off.

hope this helps x

Doglet is now waking up at 4:30 rather than the orginal 6am and both me and DH are exhausted. He takes himself out for a wee and then starts barking/howling. All he seems to want is company as when one of use sleepwalks goes downstairs and lies on the sofa he curls us with us and starts snoring...

As previously mentioned he is in a dark room, covered crate, dog flap so he can go so his business, no obvious noises or disturbances and has gradually got earlier and earlier.

Any advice gratefully received. TIA

Just a thought - perhaps at 11 weeks he may be too little to go outside at night on his own? Perhaps when he gets back in he is frightened or just letting you know he is back in! My own dog has always gone from 10 until we get up - 7 weekdays 9 ish weekends. But he was shut in his crate at night until he was 9 months. He's also a bit of a wuss and was/is frightened of the stars and moon!

He is now 17 weeks, but will try locking him in his crate at night and see if that makes a difference. He goes out at other points in the night and is fine tho ...

Definately give the locking in crate thing a try though. Thanks