# Why oh Why is my 18 month old shihtzu waking up at 5am for the last month? help!



## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

At 5am, our dog has been waking up every day for over a month now. It is like she has a clock in her head..between 4:50 and 5am. We live in an apt so we hear her because she needs to get her scratching, shaking it out, waking herself up routine. She is crated at night and her crate is huge but we can still hear her thumping. She is uncrated all day and nothing has changed in her enviroment so we are at a loss. She is healthy and just thinks 5am is playtime. She does not need to go out. This morning, I let her out of her crate and bought her bed into our room and tried to go back to sleep. She just looks at me, wags her tail and wants to play. She finally settles down and then tries to go to sleep because she has nothing else to do. I want to change something but I don't know what to change. The temp in the house is fine. Her routine or schedule hasn't changed. She used to sleep until like 6:45 or 7:15 and I used to wake her up. I feel like I have a newborn or a puppy again. Her bedtime is 10:30 but she winds down around 9pm or sometimes earlier. We try to keep her up with playtime but she is a shihtzu and is done/exhausted with running or anything else after about 10 minutes. If anyone has any thoughts I'd appreciate it. I am jealous of people who tell me their dog needs to be woken up every day  thanks!


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## Abbylynn (Jul 7, 2011)

Do you take her for a walk before bedtime? I would try making her last walk right before bedtime. This would wear her out at a later time and she will get the extra potty break as well. Just a thought. 

My dogs have sometimes gotten me up at 4 or 5 am to potty. It seems like they get on a schedule like that if I put them to bed too early without not enough extra play time ... or a too early potty break.


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

yes her walk is at 9:15p-9:30 each night. That hasn't changed either. We go to bed at 10:30. She is in no rush to go out when we take her out at 7:30am in the morning. The problem with waiting until 10pm or so to take her out is that she is already sleeping and exhausted so it's like moving a 15 pound log to get her to go out. We hate doing that to her. She is still kinda up around 9:15 but not much and that is a struggle too to get her to wake up.


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## Hambonez (Mar 17, 2012)

What happens if you ignore her? She just makes noise in her crate moving around? If she doesn't need to go out, then can't you just leave her until 7?


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## miarosen (Feb 19, 2011)

You might be able to train it out of her-my lab is used to being fed at 6:30-he will wake me up at 6:32 if I'm late. I've been working to get him to let me sleep in-I ignore him until 7, then when he's no longer waking me up before 7 I'll ignore him until 7:30. You may have to do smaller increments...


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

yes all she does is make moving around noise in her crate. sure we can ignore her and we do for the most part. She won't whine or anything but it is the first scratch and moving around and then I am up and I just can't go back to sleep. Today I took her out because I wanted to go back to sleep but I just couldn't. If I left her in there, she'd probably go back to sleep or make some more noise but at that point I am up. I wish I was a heavy sleeper but we live in a 760 square foot apartment so I hear everything. Up until a month ago, I was waking her up.


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

what's even crazier is that on the weekends she gets very little sleep because we are home all day and we take her out and do our errands with her etc. You'd think she would be exhausted and not wake up at 5am still but somehow she does.


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## miarosen (Feb 19, 2011)

Two possibilities.
1) She now knows that moving around in her crate will get you to get up and interact with her. And she happens to wake up at 5am (dogs have a fantastic sense of time). If you don't interact with her until 5:15 for a week or so, she should stay quiet until 5:15. Then wait until 5:30, until she's getting up on your schedule, not hers.
2)She's not actually trying to get attention, but the noise wakes you up. That's not a training issue. Dogs often get up and stretch. If the noise bothers you, a blanket or towel in the crate can cut down on that. 
I sympathize either way-I was in a 500sqft place with two large dogs for a while. I woke up every time one needed to move, and breakfast then was 5:30AM sharp or I woke up with a cold nose in my ear.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Welcome to my world but it's our ten year old sheltie that wakes us up around 5am. Good thing I'm an early riser.


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

yeah it is definately not 1. We don't react to it. Today I just thought I would plus she knows she isn't getting any playtime at that hour. It is definately #2 and her lovely loud stretching routine. We have a blanket in there already and I can't put in anything thicker because then she'll be hot. My husband and I were discussing tonight and we think maybe when she does make noise, we will let her out and have her hang in the living room and we'll have the gate up so she can't come to the bedroom. This way if she just wants out of her crate and want to continue her stretching then it won't be as loud. I don't know. I don't want to give in but this has been going on for some time now and I feel like I need a plan B. I just hope I can go back to sleep. I am so tired today and barely got any work done. I still love her to pieces though but ugh.


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## miarosen (Feb 19, 2011)

Why do you crate her at night? What if you just leave the crate open and block off her access to you bedroom? Basically what you said, but you don't have to get up in the morning? 
I'm not saying crating is bad. Just asking.


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

it's a good question. She has a sensitive stomach so I think it stems from that. It took us quite some time to get her on the right food but we finally got her on the right food and she has been doing well for almost a year. I think at that time the crate helped because she would "alert" us by wimpering that she wasn't really well and so we just stayed with the crate at night. We did try one time like a year ago what you said and it just so happened that she had too much of a bullystick and so she went in the house..it was a coincidence but we just went back to crating her and said we'll try again and we never did. 

At 18 months, I think she might go to the gate and wimper. Sometimes I have races on the weekend and I do what you said and I leave and my husband is still sleeping and he tells me she begins to make enough noise lol to let him know she is up and he should get up lol and she has wimpered too. She has no issue being on her own but if she knows we are home she wants to play or be with us. So we'll have to figure it out. It may not be a bad idea. She is great with transition and has no behavior issues but we just worry if she isn't feeling well, then how will we know? Her wimpering could mean she wants us to wake up or it could mean she isn't feeling well. I mean I guess it would not happen alot since she has had no issues in a long time but we still think about it.


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## miarosen (Feb 19, 2011)

Ok, a little more-why can't she have access to the bedroom? Do you think she'd whimper if she had access to the whole apartment?
Can you tell when she's whimpering to get attention and when it's important?


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## Puppy0226 (Jun 7, 2012)

yeah she will just go into our room and walk around from one side of the bed to another and shake rattle and roll and try to get our attention. She doesn't have to be in a crate to make noise. It is just louder in the crate. If we ignore her, will she settle down? yes but I am up at that point ya know. This morning I brought her into our room with her bed and she just sits there and looks at me and wags her tail lol and then goes through her routine walks around and then gives up. I have no idea how people sleep with their dogs. On the weekends, we had her on the bed with us if we nap and within an hour she will move around many times until she is comfortable. I can't tell right now the difference in wimpering because she has always been crated at night and she has only wimpered otherwise a few times on the weekends when I have left her and my husband is still sleeping. My fear is that if we did uncrate her at night and she wasn't feeling well, she could go in the house you never know. What if we missed hearing her. SHe is so well trained that i would not want to go backwards.


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## Happyxix (Aug 18, 2013)

Puppy0226 said:


> yeah she will just go into our room and walk around from one side of the bed to another and shake rattle and roll and try to get our attention. She doesn't have to be in a crate to make noise. It is just louder in the crate. If we ignore her, will she settle down? yes but I am up at that point ya know. This morning I brought her into our room with her bed and she just sits there and looks at me and wags her tail lol and then goes through her routine walks around and then gives up. I have no idea how people sleep with their dogs. On the weekends, we had her on the bed with us if we nap and within an hour she will move around many times until she is comfortable. I can't tell right now the difference in wimpering because she has always been crated at night and she has only wimpered otherwise a few times on the weekends when I have left her and my husband is still sleeping. My fear is that if we did uncrate her at night and she wasn't feeling well, she could go in the house you never know. What if we missed hearing her. SHe is so well trained that i would not want to go backwards.



I tried sleeping with the dogs in my bed. They wake up at random times of the night walks around before going back to bed. All that movement however wakes me up so I end up getting a terrible nights rest. They are now back to being crated at night and still wake up early to stretch before going back to bed. My advice...get a lot of blankets and shove them in the crate.


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