Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
The doghouse

If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.

Original poster

early barking....help!

12 replies

PossiblyPFB · 27/02/2018 09:16

My first time posting in the doghouse!

Over the past 6m, PFBdog (9) has taken to barking in the early morning for attention or food.

She’s very clever and has worked out that if she barks at 4am etc someone (DH) will come down and check if she needs to go out. While this used to be a very sporadic thing when she genuinely needed to go, she’s now taken to doing it pretty much every morning. She won’t stop once she starts. It’s an intermittent woof that gives you just enough time to go back to sleep - we adore her, but it’s like slow torture.

If it’s not too early (6am ish), DH will feed and let her out quickly and go back to bed or stay downstairs and rest there and she will be quiet then. But I think she just thinks she now has him trained as she doesn’t distinguish between 3:30-4am and 6am. If it’s 4 he doesn’t feed her just lets her out or shouts down for her to stop. Which sometimes works. But wakes everyone too.

Sleeping upstairs with us isn’t an option (which would solve the problem!) as PFBdog has significant joint problems and should not use stairs on Vet advice as a result.

So I am wondering about bark solutions (or something else please suggest anything!!!) to break this cycle/habit and stop waking the whole household too early - obviously we are looking for something humane that would also be effective - can anyone suggest something that has worked for you??

Thanks!

OP posts:
Original poster
PossiblyPFB · 27/02/2018 09:18

...and obviously I’ve pointed out to DH that she’s being rewarded for her efforts and so of course she will continue.... we just need to break the cycle!

OP posts:
HonkyWonkWoman · 27/02/2018 09:31

You are rewarding her barking by letting her out and sometimes feeding her.
If you can bear to totally ignore her for a few nights, until you are ready to get up, that would break the habit.
Or after trying this, get your husband to come down to her, look angrily into her eyes and tell her "No" (in no uncertain terms) "go to bed".
No smiling, no touching, be quite angry.
You might have to do this quite a lot until they get the message but dogs are not stupid, they know when you are chastising them.
Just shouting down for the dog to be quiet will not work.
Best of luck with this, otherwise there are devices for stopping dogs barking but I don't know anything about them. But if all else fails I would have no qualms personally about using something like this.

BiteyShark · 27/02/2018 10:08

Slightly different situation but my dog sleeps in my bedroom and kept waking early wanting a stroke.

We had several weeks of ignoring him until my alarm goes off. He 'huffs' a lot early in the morning but now knows there is no point getting up until my alarm goes off so you could try an alarm in the kitchen so she starts to associate that with you coming downstairs.

Original poster
PossiblyPFB · 27/02/2018 10:22

Honkywonk thanks - and yes completely appreciate the reward cycle. Will talk to DH about that strategy. She often isn’t even up, he goes down and she is casually barking from her bed, lazy thing!

Bitey that’s an interesting idea re the alarm... we could try that potentially!!...

OP posts:
missbattenburg · 27/02/2018 11:06

I use an alarm with my pup - I never, ever get up before the alarm (even if I have to secretly change it to bring it on earlier because I am awake and want to get up). He has learned that asking before the alarm is pointless so amuses himself if he is awake - I can hear him chewing his toys quietly and waiting.

One of the best things I ever did Grin

namechange2222 · 27/02/2018 11:14

You have my sympathy. Mine has started nudging me from 4am onwards. I caused it in the first place as had a period of insomnia and got up v v early for a while. Dog obviously was in her element and thought she'd died and gone to heaven. Food and barking in garden at 4am, what could be more fun! Now it's become a habit. She sleeps on my bed so if I get up for the loo early morning she thinks this is it, getting up time. I can be stern and say No. But by then I'm awake and want to go downstairs. She follows, I feed her and let her out but it can be 4-5am. She barks at the moon, she barks at frost and don't get me started about the snow this morning....the barking doesn't last and we're very rural but it's so bloody antisocial at that time. I've asked the few neighbours and no one has heard her but I'm pretty worried there just being polite

mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork · 28/02/2018 12:23

My dog likes a lie-in and has to be called out of bed several times (like a teenager) before she emerges. However, she goes to sleep in her basket in my room and, as the night becomes colder, comes to join me under my duvet. Trouble is, she is too polite to just jump up and feels she has to be invited first so she starts shaking herself and making clapping noises with her ears to wake me up so I can tell her to jump up.
My old, much larger, dog used to wake me on occasions in the night by loudly licking her legs (she knew I would wake up and tell her to stop licking and go to sleep) or just standing next to my pillow and staring into my face (she was same height). She wasn't allowed on my bed but sometimes wanted me to cover her over with her blanket or, occasionally, let her out as she couldn't wait until morning.

WombatStewForTea · 28/02/2018 21:10

My dog went through a phase of doing this until I twigged it was because we fed as soon as we got up. We now feed much later and he never wakes up before us.

If you think she genuinely does need to go for wee sometimes then Id be setting an alarm for before she wakes up to take her out and then putting her back to bed. In my opinion this would break the cycle of waking and barking too early

Original poster
PossiblyPFB · 28/02/2018 22:10

@wombatstewfortea she has a really solid bladder- under normal circumstances she can hold it all night. Occasions have been really more when she’s maybe eaten something nasty the day before and needed to go outside to urgently poo, or when she’s refused to wee last thing in the evening (which is rare she refuses). It would be very rare that she actively needs to go unanticipated- but we might be more aware if she’s refused.

DH is intrigued by the training for alarm setting, think we are going to try that!

OP posts:
Chippyway · 28/02/2018 22:27

I’m another one who uses the alarm and it was only done by accident!

As soon as my alarm goes off my dog knows it’s getting up time. It really doesn’t take long for them to realise that alarm = a certain result

I could receive ten texts and she wouldn’t lift her head but as soon as my alarm ringtone goes off she’s up licking me

JaneEyre70 · 28/02/2018 22:32

Ours has the run of the house at night and always sleeps in the kitchen but he starts off by our bed. He's got beds all round the house Hmm. Funnily enough, at 6am he comes upstairs and jumps on me..... then sits staring until I get up and take him out for a wee. Luckily he's happy to go back to bed after, but there are mornings that I could kill him!! I like the alarm training idea too.

namechange2222 · 01/03/2018 11:50

Laughing at how some dogs try to get your attention. Mine does this fake yawn sound. She really has to work herself up to it and I try so hard not to laugh with one eye slightly open watching her. She does it while breathing into my face! If that doesn't work she snuggles up into my back but deliberately wriggles her little legs around!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page