Why does my dog do this in the mornings?

[PigeonInFlight]

Our dog wakes DH up in the morning and then when he’s got up, goes back to her bed. Why does she do this and how can we persuade her not to.

DH gets up early, but about anything from half an hour or so before he does, the dog gets out of her bed (in our bedroom) and starts pacing about, building up to loud huffs and whinnying noises and eventually little barks at DH. However once he gets up and goes into the bathroom, she gets back into her bed and settles down. If he calls her to come downstairs with him she declines and stays in her bed.

Sometimes she will start pacing again and try to tell me to get up. If DH hears this and calls her down, she will then return to and settle in her bed 🙄

Why is she doing this? It’s not a massive problem but a bit annoying and I just can’t follow her logic.

Background info - 4 year old lab, adopted 6 months ago having had 3 previous homes. Gorgeous, happy girl.

Any thoughts?

Is something waking her up at that time - heating coming on/starting to get light/regular noise outside? Labs have good body clocks so maybe she's just anticipating him getting up?

All our labs start pacing before we get up, but that's because they want their breakfast!

Well done by the way for getting a rescue. And for letting her sleep in your bedroom

Do either of you give her attention when she starts up? It sounds like it's behavioural or a habit to me.

Thank you @Hedgerow2😊 We’re lucky to have found her, she’s an absolute delight. It may be the light or noise from outside waking her, but it seems odd that she then settles back down as soon as DH gets up. Also odd that she goes back to bed if called downstairs as she knows she gets a treat when she goes down and is usually very food motivated.

We don’t give her any attention @biscuitsandbooks. DH doesn’t fuss her when he gets up.

It almost seems like she doesn’t really want to get up so early but thinks it’s her job to get us up out of bed.

She's checking you're still alive 😁

Mine does this. I think he thinks it's his job.

I actually think cats or foxes disturb him and once he's awake he likes to come and see us.

Maybe she thinks you're lazy and need to get up?

Or DH is snoring and it's disturbing her so she clears him out and goes back to bed?

Maybe it is just checking in/checking up on us after being woken by something. I don’t know whether it might help to say good morning to her when she first gets up and then encourage her back to her bed rather than leaving her to do her pacing and huffing until DH gets up.

Ours do this when the heating comes on.

Maybe she thinks you're lazy and need to get up?

But she doesn’t want to get up herself 😂

Or DH is snoring and it's disturbing her so she clears him out and goes back to bed?

Not impossible

Ive started doing this thing which sounds nuts I know, where when our dogs ( one in particular) go nuts barking at door/window when they see a delivery person. I'll say 'Thank you'. then go and look out the window/door, basically making sure they know it's my job and not theirs to take care of things.

It is actually making a difference, we also lead the dog away from whatever they are asking at.

Maybe acknowledge the dog and go and check out what they might be getting disturbed by, hopefully you can scale back the checking out and they will stay settled just by you verbally acknowledging it.

Dog is taking household alarm clock duties seriously and think DH should be up at that time. He affirms this everyday when he gets up and heads off downstairs. Dog thinks, oh good man human is up, I can get back to bed, it's a tough job being a doggo...

Would DH go back to bed and doggo might realise the daily itinerary has changed?

Mine does similar, we believe it's because she wants me to be the one getting up and letting her out in the garden. It's taken us an age but we have got to the point where she will accept my DH letting her out first thing, with encouragement from me.
To give you an idea, at the beginning if he got up and went down to let her out she'd just jump on the bed and settle. If I got up and went down she'd come with me immediately. I've spent a few months getting up walking her down with him and then retreating, going slightly less closer to the door over time. Right now I can sit up in bed, tell her to go and she'll go with him, most of the time. I'm dreaming of the day when I don't even have to do that.
I'm normally the one who feeds her, so we've been trying to mix that up a bit too.
Not sure if I'm right about this but I think I'm more of a comfort to her than he is, I have a calmer energy, so she's displaying a preference at certain times.

Our old dog (14) started waking one of us up at about 4am every morning, still dark. Always went outside so thought she wanted a wee. Over time we realised it was more about the foxes in the garden.
I decided enough was enough mostly because I could never get back to sleep and was feeling dreadful. I firmly told her get into bed (next to my bed). She did but wittered 5 minutes later, firmly told her again. That was weeks ago and she hasn’t woken us once since then.