Aaarrrggghhh! It's Getting Earlier And Earlier Each Day!

[Guest Whippet]

I don't know what to do anymore about this and it is becoming a real problem.

 

I discovered, when he first arrived, that Billy, when he wants something, he wants it NOW.

 

Now, the problem is, at first, he wanted breakfast at 6:00 so he would come to the top of the stairs and bark until I got up to go feed him. I usually get up at 6:30 but I didn't mind getting up at that hour. I assume it was his regular feeding time. Apparently, Billy was the favorite dog of the owner's or trainer's son at the track so they took him home after the race, not to the kennel...

 

But as the months go by, it's getting earlier and earlier and it has become a problem.

 

He now starts barking at 4:30 for breakfast and will bark until I come upstairs to feed him. I tell him to go back to bed, which he does, but 10 minutes later, he's back at the top of the stairs DEMANDNG breakfast. This will go on until I feed him. Then, he's super quiet for the rest of the day.

 

I live in a twin house and I have roommates and it's a REAL problem. I don't want to piss my roommates off (although they knew, when they chose to come live with my that Billy was vocal but still...) and I know my neighbours must hear Billy bark because sometimes, I hear their young daughter cry.

 

So I can't let him bark until 6:00 to try to change his habits. I have tried snacks before bedtime to help him wait, I have tried seperating supper in two parts, one at 6:00 p.m. when I come home from work, and one before I go to bed, I tried giving a snack at 4:30 when he first wakes up... But nooooo..... He wants his breakfast when he decides he wants it!

 

Me, personally, I don't care whether I have to get up at 4:00 5:00 6:00 am to feed him, although I would prefer to sleep, but I have a dog and I assume the consequences and responsabilities. It's the others around me that I'm worried about... And well, 4:30, is way too early for me, the neighbours and the dogs.

 

Any suggestions, ideas, tips?

[GeorgeofNE]

I wouldn't be giving him food at 4:30. I expect part of the problem is that you've demonstrated to him that if he's annoying enough, he'll get what he wants.

 

Not sure why he's at the "top of the stairs" and where you are, but if he were my dog, he'd be where I was, and he would be learning to WAIT for his meals until a reasonable time. To me, reasonable time is whatever time works for you during the week. I don't expect my dog to understand what Saturday is, so I do get up at our regular time on weekends.

 

People on GT will sometimes suggest the dog is hungry. My dog is ALWAYS hungry, if you ask him. We have a schedule. I don't feed him off schedule. If he really has to go out to go to the bathroom, yes, we alter our schedule. But no harm will come to your dog if you make him wait until 6:30 to eat.

 

If you're firm, and don't give in, you can nip this problem in the bud, but I do think he needs to be confined to the space you're in to keep the peace with your neighbors and enable you to more easily get him to lay down and wait.

[Guest BrianRke]

I agree. I think if you let him/make him sleep in the room with you, you can have a better handle on the situation. It could be that he just wants you to get up so he can be with you. I would also try walking him at night before you go to bed so he will be more likely to sleep through the night.

 

My dogs will start giving me that "I want my food now" look about 30min before its time for them to eat. If I were to give in and feed them, then the next time they are due for food, they will start giving me the look an hour before its time to eat.

 

If it were me and he started barking at 4:30am, I would get up and let him go outside and do his thing, bring him back in and then go back to bed WITHOUT feeding him. This way he will learn when he barks he will get to go outside, not eat.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited October 15, 2011 by BrianRke

[Guest june]

What time do you feed him his supper? My girls get supper about 6pm, a Milk Bone just before bedtime (10pm) and their breakfast at 6am. I would try giving him a small snack before bed, keeping him in the room with you at night and if necessary give him a small bit of food when he wakes up in the morning (in your room) to hold him over? Good luck.

[JAJ2010]

Normally I would say use a squirt bottle but at 4:30 in the morning!! Can you drag a garden hose through a window? Lol or more seriously get a giant super soaker. That would so not fly at my home. Not only would I kill him but I'm pretty sure my dogs would too. We take our sleep seriously

 

Blast his but and go back to sleep while he thinks about what just happened

[Guest Whippet]

I did all that!

 

- Giving him snacks

- Late suppers

- Wait until the right time

- Tell him to go back to bed (which he does, but comes back after 10 minuutes)

- Even the squirt bottle which I used just this morning...

 

I can't bring him to my bedroom. It's downstairs and he won't go down, has never gone down in the 3 years I have had him. That's why he comes to the top of the stairs and calls me.... And he's 80 lbs. I won't carry him down!!!

 

I have tried everything but I can't let him bark until 6:00. My roommates and neighbours (I live in a twin house) will kill me.

[kudzu]

You must teach him stairs then. I know it's been 3 years but it can still be done. Otherwise you will not be able to control the situation & still remain in your room. How are you using a squirt bottle if he's upstairs? It may not be working simply because to use it you have already rewarded him by coming to him, even if it is only as far as the bottom of the stairs.

 

We all live in different places & lead different lifestyles but I cannot imagine having a dog who cannot do stairs. Or is it just those stairs? If so, what is different about them that is causing this problem? Perhaps there is some adjustment you could make to help him. If he doesn't do any stairs then you owe it to both of you to teach him.

 

I get the problem with just letting him bark it out. However, you may be able to explain to your roommates & neighbors that this is a behavioral issue you will need a week to tackle. Ask them to please bear with you that long as you recondition your dog. Add in that in the long run things will be better for all of them because the goal is to stop him from doing any barking at all in the morning. That may not work with all people but for most of us if we have a heads up, understand the reason & know it is temporary we can at least accept it even if we don't like it. It is at least worth a shot. But it would still go much better if he was downstairs with you & I will add that he should be confined down there with you so he cannot go back up stairs.

 

Ultimately you have to change the morning scenario so he gets no reinforcement for barking. What he finds reinforcing may not be what you perceive as reinforcing. As I mentioned, just getting you to leave your bed & go to the bottom of the stairs may be reinforcing. And dogs, like all creatures, are more likely to repeat something that gets reinforcement even if it sometimes has an adverse reaction. Though commands like "Quiet" or "Bed" may help, your dog obviously has learned that persistence pays. So now it is time to out persist him.

 

I hesitate to mention this because I feel you owe it to all parties to train your dog but it would be hypocritical of me not to confess. We actually did give up training my cat on this issue. He had started running laps on the bed, which included going straight across our faces & pillows, or scratching, scratching, scratching at the door & on & on for a couple hours before our alarms went off. Despite our best efforts to ignore him we failed. He won. I admit it. Our ultimate solution was to set up an autofeeder for his breakfast. It is set to go off an hour before our alarms. It took about a week before his behavior completely disappeared but he finally recognized that breakfast no longer came from us but from that machine that really could out persist him. Oh, yes. He did try to convince it to give him food. We found it in odd places on the floor because he had been knocking it around. It was on it's side a couple times & once upside down. Yet it never rewarded him with breakfast before it's designated hour. We've had a couple instances when it didn't dispense because of low batteries or human error. In those cases though he waited quite a while before giving up & rousing a human servant from bed to fix the device.

 

But please don't do as I did with my cat. Please help your dog & yourself by working through this issue the proper way. OK?

 

ETA: I said "you will need a week to tackle" but truth is that it could take a lot longer before the behavior is finally extinct. In my experience with dogs a week is usually enough time to make things significantly better. However, sometimes behaviors appear to disappear & then resurface for a bit at an even more exasperating level. It is call an "extinction burst" & can happen only once or several times depending on the individual. It is imperative you ignore that burst or you will then be stuck with an even bigger problem.

Edited October 15, 2011 by kudzu

[brindlehound]

Not to hijack this thread but I'm having a similar issue with Magic. I don't have any suggestions but will be watching for others' suggestions. Good Luck.

[GeorgeofNE]

What time do you feed him his supper? My girls get supper about 6pm, a Milk Bone just before bedtime (10pm) and their breakfast at 6am. I would try giving him a small snack before bed, keeping him in the room with you at night and if necessary give him a small bit of food when he wakes up in the morning (in your room) to hold him over? Good luck.

 

This is exactly what I suggest you NOT do.

 

Not meaning to flame the poster--just point out that if you give a dog food every time it misbehaves...you end up with a bratty dog begging for food at 4 AM!

[Guest KennelMom]

Teach him stairs, have him in the room with you and correct him for inappropriate barking. I would bet he manipulates you in other ways as well, but when things are "no big deal" we tend to accommodate....until they become a big deal.

 

We have a dog like that. He was a blood donor at a vet and learned that if he was annoying enough, someone would eventually give him what he wanted. Give him an inch, he WILL take a mile. A little NILIF can go a long way with dogs like these.

[Guest Whippet]

Yeah, teaching him stairs makes tons of sense!

 

He actually does stairs but just not "those" stairs. It was the same with Astro. He didn't go down for a whole year and then, he decided he wanted to go so he did, verrrrrry slowly, but he did. He's so funny. It can take him up to a minute to go down but he does.

 

So I will start teaching him to come downstairs. héhé Will be a good challenge! Then, I'll make him sleep in the basement with me.

 

And as for the squirt bottle, I guess the one I use is fast enough to reach upstairs! lol! I don't know!

 

And Brindlehound, you can hijack my thread as much as you want! We can actually compare notes and share experience!

 

Thanks!

[Guest Liz_in_PA]

While you have a complicated challenge, I want to ask about your bedtime snack. We found that if we give a meat based bedtime snack, Bonnie is more likely to wake early and with grumbly hungry unhappy tummy. If we want a full night's sleep, we have to give a milkbone or grain based cookie.

[winnie]

I agree with teaching him stairs and putting him in the same room with you at night.

 

Our girls all sleep in our bedroom at night. We used to leave our door wide open, but our newest grey would wander downstairs and start barking her head off at odd hours for not apparent reason. Now we close the door... and have no more problems getting them to sleep through the night.

[Guest Tigonie]

He has you trained.

 

It sounds like he's probably food motivated and outgoing. Most dogs will try some stairs for a tasty treat (peanut butter, cheese, or hot dogs, etc.) I agree that it would probably help to train him on the stairs and have him in with you at night.

 

Whatever you do, DON'T give him food if he is doing a behavior you don't want. Letting him out as a result of barking is a good thing to teach, because it's handy for him to be able to communicate that.

[Guest Ummon]

Ace started doing the same thing. I threw a pillow at him. he hid in his crate until I got up 3 hours later. Doesn't do it anymore

[BluegrassGrey]

I can totally sympathize- I've had one do this for years.... He has started waking up earlier and earlier. A blanket or pajamas have helped him sleep in a bit later- he has just been waking up because he was cold (with the recent weather changes).

 

What type of stairs is he having trouble with? Maybe buy some stair treads or carpeting?

[kudzu]

Ace started doing the same thing. I threw a pillow at him. he hid in his crate until I got up 3 hours later. Doesn't do it anymore

Well that would be a quite a lesson for hound & human. I am not above getting so frustrated that I might break down & throw a pillow at my dog. However, in retrospect it appears the correction was too harsh for this dog. I wouldn't repeat something that sent my dog into hiding for 3 hours even if it appears to successfully end the undesirable behavior since that behavior was not posing a threat.

[Guest Snazzy_Chloe]

What is different about "those" stairs that he won't do?

Are they open backed, or or they wood or maybe slippery? Very steep? Something is different about them.

I would think you would want him sleeping in your bedroom all the time anyway

[Guest Whippet]

About the snacks:

 

I usually give them a little snack after their 11:00 pm pee break. A few treats, cookies, sometimes a cup of food I spread all over the doggie bed in the kitchen that they share together, all three of them. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the trick.

 

About the stairs:

 

Those stairs are not outside. He does outside stairs really well, long, short, all of them. Yes, they are in wood and I am redecorating my basement where I sleep and I'm planning on putting carpet the steps.

 

I am really hoping the carpet will help because I tried to take him downstairs the other day and it was HELL. Making him go up the stairs was almost worse.

[Guest Swifthounds]

Snacks are never your answer. They're just a easy way for a lazy owner to temporarily placate a dog. Dogs don't get hungry every few hours or even ever 12 hours. They also don't need to eat daily - they just need to eat enough food for a given period of time. Dogs left to their own devices eat however much is available whenever available and nothing when it isnt.

 

The OPs issue is a training problem. Namely, letting the dog train the human rather than the human train the dog. The training advice above is good. It takes more work to train than to be trained, but both dog and human will be better for it.

[Guest Whippet]

Snacks are never your answer. They're just a easy way for a lazy owner to temporarily placate a dog. Dogs don't get hungry every few hours or even ever 12 hours. They also don't need to eat daily - they just need to eat enough food for a given period of time. Dogs left to their own devices eat however much is available whenever available and nothing when it isnt.

 

The OPs issue is a training problem. Namely, letting the dog train the human rather than the human train the dog. The training advice above is good. It takes more work to train than to be trained, but both dog and human will be better for it.

 

I don't like the fact you are basically calling me lazy.

 

I have people living with me and near me and I don't want to allineate them with the noise.

 

I think I am actually trying to be respectful and avoid the noise at the wee hour of the morning.

[Guest iconsmum]

Or, you can play the "my mummy's nice, but she's an idiot" game...(providing you have a door to the fenced backyard), when he barks, you misinterpret his demand bark for an "out"bark and put him outside - this works quite well if it's nippy out - rain's even better - say " oh! you need out? ok!" put him out, close the door, walk away, wait 60 seconds -stay out of sight...let him in, go back to bed, and wait for the next demand bark - get up, and repeat...6 or 8 times if you have to - very matter of factly - as if you're absolutely sure he needs out...don't put a coat on him and don't say anything else to him...bed/bark/"out?ok!"/out/60 seconds/in/back to bed/...eventually he'll decide you're just too dumb to deal with and you don't have to spray him or throw stuff at him....

Edited October 23, 2011 by iconsmum

[kudzu]

Snacks are never your answer. They're just a easy way for a lazy owner to temporarily placate a dog. Dogs don't get hungry every few hours or even ever 12 hours. They also don't need to eat daily - they just need to eat enough food for a given period of time. Dogs left to their own devices eat however much is available whenever available and nothing when it isnt.

 

The OPs issue is a training problem. Namely, letting the dog train the human rather than the human train the dog. The training advice above is good. It takes more work to train than to be trained, but both dog and human will be better for it.

Wow! That's a very inconsiderate response.

[kudzu]

While you have a complicated challenge, I want to ask about your bedtime snack. We found that if we give a meat based bedtime snack, Bonnie is more likely to wake early and with grumbly hungry unhappy tummy. If we want a full night's sleep, we have to give a milkbone or grain based cookie.

That's a very interesting observation. Most of the treats I use during the day are used for training & are either all meat or have a very high meat content. But the bedtime snack is usually a cookie of some sort. That's really just because it takes them a bit longer to eat it. I started giving the bedtime snack to avoid the empty tummy yacking that had been happening early AM.

 

Can totally sympathize with OP's dilemma. Unfortunately it seems to have created a cookie monster. The carpet on the stairs sounds like an excellent idea. You'll likely still have an uphill battle but he's far less likely to suffer slip n' slide with carpet. Once he gets down & up a few times without fear of slipping he'll probably start doing the stairs on his own. Getting him to do stairs those first few times though... whew! not fun.

 

Good luck. I think you'll ultimately succeed as long as you keep at it. You deserve credit for recognizing the problem is growing & tackling it now before it gets any worse.

[Guest NeverSayNever]

I totally disagree with all the snack suggestions. He has been trained to be a spoiled brat. Obnoxious behavior = a meal. Pure and simple. If he did that to me, I run down the stairs and squirt him with a water spray bottle. I would not tolerate that for a second. Obviously, if he was in the same room with you, it would be easier to address because you could squirt him from bed.

 

I'd also consider not feeding a breakfast. Assuming you go to work, I would stuff 2 Kongs with some of his breakfast mixed with canned pumpkin, cottage cheese, yogurt, or an egg. Then I'd add the rest of his breakfast to his dinner. I'd get up while he is quiet, get ready, make my own breakfast, and take him for a walk. I'd give him those 2 stuffed Kongs before you leave the house.... and that is his breakfast.

 

I'd also work a lot on him having to be quiet, calm, and lying down before you leash him up for walks or prepare his dinner. I'm guessing that he is probably obnoxious at other times of the day as well.