Getting up earlier each day HELP!

[Paul Schumacher]

Help!  Zoë is getting up earlier and earlier each day.  She used to sleep until about 7am, but we've progressed to 5:30am.  I know it isn't because she has to go out.  She barks, I get up, wait until she isn't barking, then let her out of her crate.  Can't let her "bark it out" as we share walls with neighbors.  As soon as I'm up, she curls up and goes to sleep on the floor or quietly chews on a bully stick.  She will get up again around 7am and that's when she needs to go out.  How can we get her to stay quietly in her crate longer?  She's trained us!  

Thanks!

[John Wang]

Does Zoë sleep in your room or out? What we did with Boomer was that he would sleep in the kitchen crate until he 'earned' his way up into our room (took about three weeks) by not having any potty accidents for a good period of time.

The first week we just let him bark (we gave our neighbors a heads up, they were gracious about the barking) but then we were suggested to take him out whenever he barked, to let him know that barking = need to go. I spent two nights around 3AM continually running Boomer outside without speaking to him to go potty, then taking him back upstairs. He didn't like those interactions and the barking stopped completely at night.

Later we met a couple who had a golden doodle that recommended rattling the crate as soon as they started barking. We did this style training on Boomer when he would whine and start barking if we crated him to leave home and grab dinner or grocery shopping, or just needed him out of the way while we weren't on the same floor. After 2-3 days he wouldn't bark anymore.

Now Boomer's completely silent in the morning in our room; if he wakes up he'll chew on a durable rope toy (we check it every day for any weaknesses) or just sit waiting for us to wake up. If we crate him to go out, he'll still sometimes whine a little, but our neighbors say they don't hear barking from our place now. Basically his barking's action/reaction is no response, or a rattled crate, so he has little incentive to bark while crated.

One thing that concerns me is that when we play chasing games with him, he'll get over-excited and start barking at the person he chases, especially if there's an object between them. We're not sure how to handle this aside from putting him immediately in time-out (pick him up and carry him out of the room if we're visiting family, or putting him in his play pen and ignoring him for 1-2 minutes)

[Paul Schumacher]

She sleeps in the family room in her crate.  Maybe it's time to try her in our bedroom.  Thanks!

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

I would still contain her within your bedroom, if possible. Having her have the run of the house may be setting her up for failure.

[John Wang]

We have two crates, one's for downstairs (and the car, pain to carry!) and one's up in our bedroom. Boomer's used to both (they're identical) so it's easy to get him in to either. Once he hits his 30 days of no accidents (so close! one more week), we'll start leaving the crate open and setting up his IRIS dog pen to give him limited space to walk around. I may set up a tarp in the area just to make clean-up easier if he decides it's okay to go potty overnight outside the crate. Our plan is to inch his roaming space wider and wider each night of no accidents until he has free-roaming in the bedroom. We will never let him roam the house freely at night though, not until he's fully fully an adult (and even then probably just the top floor)

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

Does she " need" to be crated at night? Enzo started doing this at around 5-51/2 months.....and I began to re-think sleeping arrangements for her. She is in our bedroom,door closed.....we left her crate, door open...she has never had an accident in the bedroom! is happy to curl up in her crate or on her bed. She now rises when the sun does.

[Paul Schumacher]

The only reason I think she "needs" to be crated at night is because I worry she'd get bored and start chewing on something that could be harmful to her or do damage to furniture.  We haven't had any issues with this yet, but she is 6 mos old, so she is in prime teething time.

[Kelly & Zoe]

How old is Zoe?  Where is her crate, in your room?  Once our Zoe slept through the night without having to 'go' (about 4 months) she'd still wake us up bright and early at 5:00 AM ready to go!  At this point we had let her out of the crate at night and she'd sleep in our room on the floor (we never had an accident).  I hate to admit it, but we let her get on to the bed with us a few times when she started barking at 5:00 just to quiet her down, and now that's our thing.  About 5:00 she hops on to the bed curls up until we want to get up.  Not recommending it, but it did get use extra hours of sleep :-)  If you think she can hold it all night, try leaving the crate door open at night to see. 

We stopped putting our Zoe in the crate around 5 months (she never really did like it) and let her sleep where she wanted in our room.  We never had an accident past 5 months. 

Good Luck!  And love the name :-)  Your Zoe and my Zoe look similar!

[Paul Schumacher]

Cute Zoe!

Her crate is in family room, but I think it's time to try it in bedroom.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

With both of our Springers, we ended up putting them up on our bed and any night time problems ended.  Apparently they were lonely.

[Breanna]

My dog was only an earlier riser when she was a young puppy-until about four months old. I am a preschool teacher and was on summer break at the time, so it was okay for me to wake up extra early. It wasn't just that she had to go potty, she was energetic and wanted to go play. I just went with it and got up when she started whining. She started learning to sleep while I slept and now pretty much stays quiet until 7:00 when I normally get up. I will say she whined less when we stopped using the crate. She potty trained quickly and was able to free roam our bedroom at night pretty early on.

[Paul Schumacher]

Cool.  All this great advice points to seeing how she does without the crate!

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

Good luck and have a great night's sleep! ;)