# How to get dog to stop waking us up early.



## gemini6774 (Oct 15, 2012)

Ok, so my dog is almost 2.  Has been potty trained since about 6 months old. I normally wake up at 6am everyday, go downstairs, make kids lunches, shower, get dressed for the day, wake the kids up, get them ready for school, etc. My dog sleeps the whole time, never wakes up or bothers. At 7:30/8 I practically wake him to feed him and let him out before I do the school run and then i come back home. If I don't take the kids to school (PA day or holiday), but am still working (I have a home daycare), I generally get up at the same time. My dog could sleep those days till about 8/8:30 and not bother with us at all. 
Now on a weekend when no one has to work, we are all sleeping. At 6:30/7, my doggie is up and wanting my attention to feed and let him out. But every other day of the week he sleeps and we are awake. But when we are sleeping he will bug and bug and bug. I try not to feed him before 7:30, so that he isn't getting rewarded for waking us up. How do I change this behaviour? Or is this just normal and I have to deal?


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

It's up to you whether you want to put up with it or not. If you don't, you'll have to be super consistent about ignoring him. You could even try consequences for waking you up - if he jumps all over you, he does in his crate until you're ready to get up.

Dogs will do what works, and if bugging you works to wake you up, he'll keep doing it. My dog wakes my husband up on the weekends because my husband always gets up. When I was home alone, the dog let me sleep in as late as I wanted because that has never worked with me. My husband doesn't care that much about getting up a little earlier than he wanted, but I do, so we react accordingly and the dog gets it.


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## Jen2010 (Feb 12, 2013)

When you figure it out, let the rest of us know ;-)

We "solved" the problem by letting Pepper up on the bed with us when she wakes up at 6 a.m. on the weekends. Not a great solution, but she goes right back to sleep!


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## Kayla_Nicole (Dec 19, 2012)

Murphy is a jerk and wakes me up on the weekends by 7 am. This past weekend it was 6:15. I just let him out for a quick potty and then go back to bed. He usually goes back to sleep after that for another hour or so. Then he is up again and ready to eat breakfast. I don't mind, because I like keeping them on the weekday schedule anyway. Well, close to the weekday schedule as we get up at 5 am during the week. blah. He will stand in the bedroom at the end of the bed and very quiety whine. It doesn't wake my fiance, but I'm a very light sleeper. If I ignore him, he jumps on the bed and licks my face. 

Alannah would sleep until 10 am if we did.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

We were having this problem with Annabel waking us up at 6am no matter what. Barking to be fed. Loudly. Then she decided to start the barking at 5:45am... then 5:30am... It was enough to make me want to cry. I worked with my husband so that we could develop a consistent plan and this is what finally worked:

On weekdays, our alarm goes off at 6am. If she started barking between 5:30 and 6, we would completely ignore her (yay earplugs). At 6am when the alarm went off, we would get up, let her out, and feed her. On the weekends, we would set the alarm for 7 or 7:30 or 8 and she would not get food until she heard the alarm. (We would take her out once just for a pee if she started barking around 5:30 or 6 on the weekends because she usually has to pee right after waking up and I didn't want her holding it for hours) Now, thankfully, she'll wait until she hears the alarm to start getting antsy and whiney, not matter what time it's set for. 

Of course, she learns REALLY quickly when food is involved. We managed to teach her 'stay' before anything else but 'sit' because we used her mealtimes. Ha!


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## scwolek (Jan 30, 2014)

Kayla_Nicole said:


> Murphy is a jerk and wakes me up on the weekends by 7 am. This past weekend it was 6:15. I just let him out for a quick potty and then go back to bed. He usually goes back to sleep after that for another hour or so.


Yeah, Morgan does this. He wakes me up between 6:15 and 6:30 every day but he'll go back to sleep after he's gone potty, eaten, and romped for a few min.

My other dog, Sophie, would sleep all day if I did .


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## Kudzu (Aug 15, 2013)

You might try a good romp in the backyard before bedtime on Fri/Sat nights. Make him tired, and he will sleep longer.


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## d_ray (Nov 5, 2013)

Jen2010 said:


> When you figure it out, let the rest of us know ;-)
> 
> We "solved" the problem by letting Pepper up on the bed with us when she wakes up at 6 a.m. on the weekends. Not a great solution, but she goes right back to sleep!


Us too. She will sleep until 9 or 10 if she's in bed with us. Otherwise, I let her out for potty and feed her and then I could pretty well sleeo all day.


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## Flaming (Feb 2, 2013)

we tried this last night with Manna. She normally begs to go out around 5am but we pushed a block next to the bed so she could climb up if she wanted. She did actually crawl into our bed sometime around 5am then we have to lure her off a few hours later because we had to go to work and we don't want her alone in the bedroom.


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## Vivyd (Mar 8, 2013)

My dogs used to wake up early too. They would wake up and start crying and barking and want to go out. They had never had beds as puppies after they ruined the first one in about 2 days, but since it was coming into winter and getting fairly cold I got them each a bed and pretty much overnight they went from waking up at 7ish to waking up at 10. My thinking is they are just like me....it's cold out and i'm nice and warm in bed...i'll get up later. Now they are pretty fine sleeping in until around 11-12. 

I think it also helps that I take them for a run around outside before I pick my girlfriend up from work at 10. Makes them nice and tired just before bedtime.


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## CobbersMom (Jul 30, 2013)

So if I understand the OP, the dog sleeps right through your getting up on weekday mornings, but when you can actually sleep in on the weekends, then he wakes up early. Same here with Cobber. Drives me nuts! What I finally tried, and it works somewhat, is to set the alarm on the weekends, too, and then keep hitting snooze. If the alarm doesn't go off at the time it's supposed to, that seems to trigger Cobber to wake up. If the alarm goes off and I hit snooze, for some reason he's okay sleeping in for a little while longer (like he will during the week). I'm hoping that as he ages (he's 11 mos now), this getting up early on the weekend thing will pass and he'll be fine sleeping in as long as I'm sleeping in, but I see no signs of that happening yet...


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## renjbaker (Oct 7, 2013)

I have a 4 month old puppy who wakes us up at 5am like clockwork. We get up take him potty and sleep with him on the couch until we need to get up.


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