Waking up at 5am for the day

[Julie Kudron]

Winnie is a 4 mo old Goldendoodle. We go to bed by 10pm every night and she goes outside to potty around 9:30 or so and goes to her kennel. She wakes up at 12:30 to go potty, then again around 3:00, and she is up for the day at 5am. She barks two "chirpy sounding' barks, pauses, then barks two more in a pattern until we let her out of her kennel.We have let your "bark it out" after all of her needs are met, and that worked when she was 10 weeks old, but the older she gets the more relentless she gets. She barked off and on for an hour yesterday at 4:30am until one of us got up with he for the day. We also have a 5 yo doodle  who isn't kenneled. He sleeps in the livingroom by her crate.  He did the same thing as a puppy and we were able to let him out of his kennel that early in the morning and he would just go sleep on the living room floor until we got up. We can't do that with her because she annoys him and wants to wrestle with him and get out of control.
We don't have room to put her kennel in our bedroom...it's huge! We can't let her in our bed with us because she occasionally gets excited and pees on the bed...other than that she is great at going outside.

Please tell me there is someone else who went through this. What did you do?

[Missy]

so much huggable cuteness!! 

I am not an expert, but what came to me was if you have one dog out of kennel and one in kennel, and she likes to taunt older sibling, the key would be to not have them together for sleep time.

can you cover her crate with a large sheet, so the view of brother is not available? and really make sure he is not taunting her!!  (you can set up your cell phones to face time for a quick camera view for one night.) 

and while you have tried to not respond to the barking, be sure when you do go to the crate you arrive when there is no barking.  (yes, difficult to do)  We noticed that if we cave in on any rules, the dog thinks the rules have changed.  Think of tired parents and you just don't follow thru with commands.  That is huge setback for these smart dogs!! They would love to tell you how they want to roll!! 

we also made the pup sit before being let of crate. IF we arrived and he was jumping and tail wagging, no door would open until he sat and waited for command to come out. you can google the 'nothing is for free' training.  Dogs have to work for everything. 

hope you find a solution soon!! 

[Lori, Winnie, Bob and Indie]

A couple of things come to mind... First, I'm kind surprised that she is still having to potty every 2.5 hours during the night. Have you tried taking her water up earlier in the evening? And, how much exercise is she getting during the day, and particularly after supper? If you can give her a lot of exercise in the late afternoon and evening, and don't let her nap in the evening, she should sleep better for you at night.

So, if you can get her to sleep through the night, but she still wakes up at 5:00am, I would take her potty and then put her right back into her kennel. She might just be tricked into believing that it is only 3:00am. :-)

Best wishes! 

[Jamie & Zeus]

Hi! Yes, we have had a similar situation with our puppy.  He is almost 15 weeks now, and started thinking the day should start around 5 am during the last few weeks. (He usually sleeps through the night - from 9ish to 5ish though. Sorry you are still having to get up so often!)  

Zeus has never loved to be in his crate, but I have him sleep in a metal one in a small room by our master bedroom during the night. (He sleeps in that room during the day too, just not in his crate.) When he wakes up around 5 or 6 am, if I put him back in that crate, he barks and barks and barks.  We have 5 kids and didn't want him waking up the whole household, so one of the first times he was doing this so early, we decided to put him in his travel crate in our garage.  He barked for under 10 minutes the first couple of early mornings that we did this, and then after that it is never more than a couple of barks or not at all.  A couple of days ago, I decided to try putting him in his travel crate in his normal space when he woke up early (wondering if he just preferred the plastic crate better), but he went right back to the prolonged barking.  So I moved him back to the garage and he didn't utter a peep. So, I don't know if he is just smart enough to know if we will rescue him when he barks in his room, but not when he barks in the garage, or what - but this strange solution has really worked for us!  Now he will always sleep at least an extra hour after he goes to the garage. And it has actually been nice to not worry about having to tiptoe past his room in the morning if I wake up early myself to exercise.  So maybe give it a try if you have a garage!

[Collette Bonvillain]

Our puppy is 12 weeks and she is in a similar situation. The only dogs I've ever had took like a week tops to train! Not her. We pick up the water at 6 pm, go to bed at varying times but take her out around 8-9. Then again at midnight. Then 5 am. She doesn't bark too much anymore, and she finally stopped sprinkling pee as we took her out of the kennel to go outside! We have our fingers crossed she's getting better bladder control. :) Only tip I can offer is that we carry her to the door everytime and don't put her down till she's outside. Hoping ours and yours aren't excited pee pee-ers for much longer. ;)