Sadie's schedule

[Becka]

I'm curious about whether anyone else has encountered this issue. One night a week I teach a class from 7 - 10, so Sadie is home alone for about 5 hours and I usually get home between 10:30 and 11:00. Normally we are both asleep by 11:00 (Sadie usually conks out around 10:00) but on teaching nights we're both pretty much wide awake until after midnight--I'm wired from drinking coffee and teaching late, and she's always very excited when I get home (and I assume has been sleeping for much of the time I've been gone.) After we go to sleep, she's been waking me up to go outside and pee at about 3:00 in the morning. This is the only night that she does this. Of course, she still gets me up at the usual time (about 6:30) even though she was up peeing a few hours earlier.

 

Any suggestions for getting her to sleep through the night even with the schedule abnormality? I'm thinking about having someone stop by and take her for a walk or to the dog park while I'm at work; other than that I'm not sure really sure what to do. Also, Sadie is 7 months old now--can I leave water for her when I'm gone for that long? She's always pretty thirsty when I get home.

[Peter Romano]

I have a 5 month old Goldendoodle who has many walks in the evening, and a last walk at 11PM.  She is in a crate at night and always starts to bark at 4:45AM-5AM.  The crate is in our living room, so since we live in an apartment building, we can't let her bark for long.  Either my wife or I have to go out to the living room, and lay down on the couch so she sees us.  Once she sees us, she settles down quickly, and then either we stay out on the couch or go back to the bedroom.  We usually walk her at 6AM or 6:30AM.  We also don't give her any water after 9PM-9:30PM.  Outside of moving the crate into our bedrooms, I am not sure how we can get her to not bark earlier than our wake up time of 6AM or 6:30PM.

[Harper]

You can definitely leave her water for the 5 hours you are gone teaching class.  I even recommend it!  And then when you get home you can let her have water for another 30 minutes or so and then take it up so that all the water can get out of her system by the time you take her for her last walk at midnight or so.  At 7 months she should have no problem holding it even with the water on hand for 5 hours.

[Daphna L.]

I would not make a big deal about wakiing you during the night.  Once a routine is established they like to follow it.  My dog, Hunter has learned the difference between getting up early because the alarm goes off and sleeping in because it is the weekend.  It took a while to teach this but it works.  I cover the crate because my husband's alarm goes off at 4:50am and Hunter sleeps through until my alarm at 6:45am unless there is an emergency.  He has woken us up during the night to go potty.  Labradoodles are very smart and will adjust to your life style.