we’ve got a 6 month old cocker spaniel puppy who we’ve had for 3.5 months
hes never been a good sleeper, this includes daytime naps and nighttime but with nighttime we obviously expected through the night toilet get ups and really early mornings when he was very young- all fine with that
hes now 6 months old and he is still waking us up at either 4.50am or 5.30am barking. we do a very boring toilet trip and then try to go back upstairs but at this point he continues to bark so we have to stay downstairs as we’re in a terrace house so can’t have barking at that time of morning. we try to never come downstairs as he is actively barking, it’s defenitely a protest bark rather than distress
things we’ve tried:
crate closed at night (did this until last week)
free roam in puppy proof room (started last week, we got to 6am twice so thought we’d cracked it but he’s back on the early mornings again). he likes the option of moving to the cold wooden floor part way through the night
crate covered (still do, but crate is now open in his room)
white noise (still do)
snuggle puppy (still do)
the alarm trick (was making him wake even earlier as if he pre-empted it)
keeping him up later (normally naps from 8.30pm, didnt make a difference)
feeding him earlier and later (didn’t make a difference)
sniff walk in the evening (still do this)
he gets 3 walks a day, one is off leash and usually sees other dogs
he gets enrichment during all of his meals and an extra enrichment chew during the day whilst we’re working
im at a loss what to do anymore as we can’t let him bark it out due to the neighbours. I can see on the camera he wakes up about 20 mins before the barking and potters around or lies by the baby gate quietly
EDIT: there’s no internal (like central heating) or external noise (that I’m aware of) that would be waking him at this time as nobody else in our neighbourhood is up at this time. we have a garden with high brick walls so would be surprised if there was any cats or foxes he could sense
submitted by /u/hjf999
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