advice needed - How do I get my doodle to "sleep in" when school is out?

[Doris]

Only five more days of school left! Wahoo! I can't wait to sleep in. . . . .oh yeah, this is the first summer with my Doodle, Bodi! He doesn't understand staying in bed. He wakes up at 5:20 when the newspaper is delivered to the front door. Then he thinks I should get up too!!!

How do I get him to sleep a little bit longer in the morning? Staying up later does not work!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I have found that if I stay still, Ned settles down again until I am ready to get up. We have a doggie door at home so if he was crated or if our door was closed I open up and then plop myself back down. If we are camping and I have to take him out, I am usually too awake to go back to sleep, but I can get more time in before taking him just by staying still and quiet. I found quite by accident that Ned has the bladder of a big dog. He can hold it for a very long time - of course he holds it whenever he is on his leash too - this makes potty walking when camping a problem.

[Cindy and Mandy]

I doubt if Mandy will sleep in either, she is up before the alarm or right about the time it goes off, even on weekends. But luckily she is used to going back to her crate when I leave for work, so I figured I would get a morning nap about an hour after we normally would have had to get up. My husband gets up about the same time for work as I do, so once he leaves in the summer or breaks, I go back to sleep then anyway. I can always go back to sleep in the mornings after being up for an hour or less. I also figure this will keep Mandy on a routine for when school starts back and she has to go back in her crate then.

[Lynda Kamrath]

Stop getting up at 5:20. He'll catch on real quick. By the time you get yourself trained to sleeping in, he'll be trained also. One thing that works for me is putting them out in the back yard when they start stirring in the morning and then leave the back slider open a little bit and going back to bed. Then come in when they are ready and sneak back into the bedroom. I am sound asleep and they never bother me again.