Dog pining in the mornings

whippet

I have a 4 year old lab who has developed a really annoying habit.

He has started pining at first light (getting earlier each morning !!) .. he sleeps in the kitchen and has full wandering access to most of the down stairs (the stairs is closed off via childs stair gate.

Initially I just thought he was looking to go empty the bladder, so took him for a short walk just as we were going to bed to make sure he was empty before bed time ... but over the weekend I discovered what he wants us up for in the morning ...

I opened the back door about 6am on saturday and instead of going out he wandered over to the door of the utility room and sat there waiting for me to get his food !!

His usual routine since he was a small pup was to get half his daily feed in the morning and half in the early evening. he obviously associates waking up with getting fed !

He has the typical lab mentality of being a dustbin and will eat anything and everything if let, however we have a good reign on his diet and is limited to his dry feed and the very odd treat. He is not underweight and in very good condition.

He gets between 1 and 2 hours good exercise daily, a run on the beach mid afternoon and long walk though fields in the evening .. so boredom can't be an issue.

he is very clingy and very rarely would be left alone for anything more than an hour or two (my wife works from home and at weekends he comes with me everywhere!)

I am assuming I am going to have to break the association with waking up and food and feed him later in the morning ...

Any advise ... I'm going mad at the moment having to get up a 6 every morning so that he doesn't wake up the sleeping baby!

RubyGirl

Same problem here, my lady is 1.5, she sleeps in a crate with a golden retriever and same thing since it started getting brighter.

I usually have to get up or she would wake the house, I let both of them out to do their business and leave the retriever out with an older foster lab but I have to bring her back in (she's an escape artist, different story).

Blanket over the crate will not work, they will pull it in through the holes. I freeze a kong and give it to her when she comes back in. I put her back into the crate in the utility with another lab and not a sound.

This works a treat, by the way I have 5 in total incase your getting lost.

tazwaz

Hi, i had the same problem with my terrier x a few months ago. it started off at 6 the first morn, 5.30 the next and so on until it was 2 o clock in the morn!! Some one told me to ignore him, which i wasnt doing because i thought he was anxious to go to the toilet, (turned out he was just after the treat i was giving him). after my first morning of ignoring him, which wasnt easy as he just got louder every few mins, he has never woken me so early since

Kash

I'm experiencing something like this - in prep for our first baby's arrival, we've moved out two dogs out of the bedroom and into the living room.

So whearas before they would stay in the bed until we got up, I now get the eldest in at first light (at which point I let them out to pee) and then the youngest comes in at 7:00 to drop a frisbee on my face

The only thing that delayed the wake up call so far is making the living room as dark as possible. Best of luck!