Dog Wakes Me Up -- WAY Too Early!

[Jack Monzon]

I rescued a lab/Aussie Shepherd mix 5 months ago. he's 11 months old now. He wakes me up extremely early -- usually 5 a.m., but recently it's gotten to be even earlier. I guess it's nice not having to set an alarm clock anymore, but it's really wearing me out. My eyes start getting heavy at 8:30 p.m. now! He has a championship-level bladder and bowels, so I don't think it's a bathroom issue -- I used to rush him out right at 5 a.m., and he would take his time doing his business. I now putter around for 30 minutes making tea, etc., and he patiently waits for me to finish, so I think he might be waking me up just for attention.

As for how he wakes me up, he's not allowed on the bed, but he comes up to me and furiously licks my hands. If my hands aren't available, he goes for my face. If I position myself where neither are available, he starts to whine and bark. I've tried ignoring him, but it's difficult as I live in an apartment complex, and it's just so early in the morning.

Exercise: I walk him for an hour in the morning before work, usually followed by 15 or 20 minutes at the local dog park, where he can wrestle with other dogs and run at top speed. I take him out again immediately after work (6:30 p.m. or so), walking for another hour, then we come home and both have dinner. Sometimes I then take him back to the dog park at 9 p.m., for another 20 minutes of play, but usually only 2 or 3 times per week (the night crowd at the park tends to be more aggressive).

Thoughts?

[maximoo]

Walk him as close to bedtime as possible. In the morning give him something to do--like give him his breakfast in a KONG (prepare the night before) or give him a raw meaty bone while you roll over & catch a few more zzzz's.

[tinytwo]

I totally agree! If he wakes up too early, give him a Kong filled with his breakfast, or a bully stick. When we give our dogs bully sticks they will lay quietly and chew them for as long as we'll let them! That should give you some extra sleeping time.

[Horace's Mum]

Is he on his own all day when you are at work? And do you do any training of any kind with him? He is an intelligent breed, and it might be that although his physical needs are being met he isn't tired mentally and needs more work to do. Speaking from experience here - my dog tells me very clearly when he has done enough mental work with me because he wakes early if he thinks he needs to do more, but is happy to sleep through or go back to bed if he has done enough!

I would disagree with exercising too close to bed if it is an exciting walk - it can quite often just get the adrenaline going just as you want them to quieten down and then it takes longer for their minds to settle. By all means walk just before bed, but keep it a nice calm shortish walk, mine is always 10mins round the block on a short lead, no games or too much interaction but I work on reinforcing loose lead walking if I need to.

[Jack Monzon]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, unfortunately he's on his own all day when I'm at work. He has some pretty serious fear issues with humans (details of that are in other threads by me here), so my original goal of having a walker midday hasn't been realistic yet. I think I'm at least a few months away from being able to do that.

I'd love to find some toys/games for him to do during the day while he's alone. I bought a few rubber toys that you can put food inside -- one looks like a giant clam, and the top and bottom pieces screw together, while the food goes inside. It takes him a really long time to work the food out of it. Kongs are also good, but he tend to do a number on those fairly quickly.

I've had a personal trainer twice, and you're right that training really wipes him out. I probably need to do this more in the evening.

[Noobs]

You don't need a trainer to train him for you. Check out clickertraining.com (registration is free) and learn how to do it yourself. It's fun, a great way to bond with your dog, and if you do this 5 minutes in the morning and then a couple of 5-min sessions at night then you'll be way ahead of where you are now.

Sorry about the reactivity issues. I have this with my dog, and there is one dogwalker he doesn't bark at when he comes into the house. When we tried to switch to someone else he tried to nip her in the kitchen. So we've had to stick with our original dogwalk/dogsitter.

[OHenry]

The Nina Ottosson brain toys are awesome...lots of different configurations. You might need a second job to pay for them, though. My dog also likes the Kyjen toys--there is one where you get the squirrels out of the tree. There is also a Kong dispenser that will release kongs at timed intervals that you can buy on ebay.

[Horace's Mum]

All these toys are great, and yes it would be great to leave kongs and buster cubes and the like during the day (not the nina ottoson ones, those are for interaction with people and should not be left out unattended) but what your dog really needs is time spent working WITH YOU. This doesn't need anything other than treats/toys for rewarding, and a bit of imagination on your part as to what you want to teach him. You don't necessarily need to do hours and hours, but given the length of time he is on his own i think more than 10 mins a day is needed - by all means break it into 5 min slots but I would work up to having a good half hour to hour training session on different things - your breed should be well capable of that if you build it up gradually. Freeshaping with a clicker would be great for this because it really works their brain trying to work out what you want or what he can persuade you to click for, and it is easier to do after a long day at work for you. Just throw out a box, or a ball, or a blanket or something and see what he will offer you, once he gets the idea of the clicker basics.

You have a mix of 2 breeds that were bred for working with people, and he probably needs you to use some of that need to help him sleep. Whilst it is not ideal to leave him all day you are obviously aware of that and trying to deal with it, but you do need to give him much more time when you are around as a result. The clicker work will also build confidence and self esteem if done correctly (ie setting up for success, high reward for small gestures to begin with, no punishment/"no"/negativity) and you can also then transfer using it over to working on his fear issues too.

[Noobs]

Just throwing out some ideas Jack... Can you afford doggy daycare? You say he has reactivity issues with people coming into your house, but how about sending him to doggy daycare? If he's reactive to dogs and people outside your home then it might be a problem. But if you think he will be okay, you can do it 2-3 times a week. I wouldn't recommend it for every day because that's too much stimulation and I've seen a dog who went to doggy daycare every day and is a bully at the park and scatter-brained from too much physical activity and no mental stimulation.

[Jack Monzon]

This is all great info -- thanks to all of you.

To clarify about the trainer -- I've had a trainer come twice to show me the proper way to teach heel, sit, sit-stay, come, down, etc. The actual training part I do on my own, but it's been focused on these basics. My dog has picked up on them very well, but when I take him out of his comfort zone on different walks (i.e., more distractions), he does much worse, because fear and discomfort set in.

I don't know what "freeshaping" is -- HM, would you be willing to elaborate on the following?

Freeshaping with a clicker would be great for this because it really works their brain trying to work out what you want or what he can persuade you to click for, and it is easier to do after a long day at work for you. Just throw out a box, or a ball, or a blanket or something and see what he will offer you, once he gets the idea of the clicker basics.

And yeah, I realize the situation isn't ideal -- as I said in other threads, he has some serious fear issues with human strangers, and even having a walker midday is problematic right now, and would do more harm than good. I had a walker lined up the day I brought him home, and he lasted only a week, as he couldn't deal with it. My dog is fine with most -- I'd say 80% to 85% -- other dogs; he's wary of dogs bigger than himself, but he has a blast at the dog park and runs/wrestles with most all of them. It's completely different from how he behaves with humans. I've gotten him to the point where he's 100% comfortable around strangers unless they're moving in on him. When I brought him home in May, he was a real mess.

Also, I've exercised him later for the past few days, and it seems to have worked -- he's woken me up at 5:30, and given me a little snooze after that!

[Noobs]

Jack,

Check out this thread by Andre - I don't know if he reads here anymore but this was his intro post.

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5089&p=32693

One of the links is him free-shaping his foster beagle (a fear biter) to jump into a box. First he takes a box and just waits for Petey to do ANYTHING - look at it, touch it, move closer to it, etc. Petey quickly learns that he should focus on this box and the more he interacts with it the more he is rewarded. Soon enough he is jumping into the box - which was Andre's goal. But he started out rewarding the smallest of movements, and built up to more interactions with the box.

Here's a video of me free-shaping Petey to jump into a cardboard box:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlrlhGk_S4

[Horace's Mum]

Thanks Noobs! Freeshaping is just waiting for a behaviour offered by the dog, and building on that to get what you want instead of directing or luring the dog. As a basic example, when teaching sit, instead of luring the dog with the hand or food into a sitting position, you just wait until they start to sit and click that. do this a few times so the dog knows you are wanting it to drop its bottom, and then gradually withhold the click until the bottom actually touches the floor. Then build on that by waiting for a second, then 2 seconds, then 3 seconds etc before clicking.

freeshaping with an object is great, because you can either set out to train a specific behaviour, such as getting in the box, or wait and watch to see what your dog is inclined to do. By clicking anything that is a bit different, or anything that show your dog is thinking for himself, you can sometimes build up to really unusual behaviours.

The video noobs linked to is good, but I would have clicked a lot more early on - there were several times when the Petey looked towards the box but didn't get clicked - I feel the trainer was moving on too quickly and expecting too much too soon. Personally I find I get much much better results by clicking very tiny things several times, so there is no doubt in the dogs mind that (eg) I want him to work with the box.

Here is a video I made a couple of years back, with some freeshaping work to teach a retrieve and putting rings on a pole. My clicker is a blue light because I have a deaf dog, but the principle is the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVbjEcwqcZ8

[Jack Monzon]

All:

Thanks for the great replies.

I received two of the Nina Ottosson interactive toys today. I tried one out, the easiest one, and he loved it! He was a bit of a Bull In A China Shop with it (i.e., rough), but I got him to calm down. I kept it to 10 minutes or so, and it completely wiped him out. (We did this after a walk though, to be fair.) I think these are going to be great.

I would love to learn more about clicker training and freeshaping -- I can't wait to do some searches.

As an update on my original post: I've been ignoring him in the morning and just dealing with the barking, which hasn't been bad at all -- it's been more whining and "threatening to bark." I roll into a position where he can't nudge me, and just wait it out. When he's nice and calm, then I get up. It's worked for several straight days, so I'm optimistic that between this and the mind exercising, I should have success.

[Noobs]

Awesome news, Jack!

Horace's Mum, you're right, I hadn't watched that video in a while and forgot that he was clicking way too late. When I first started out, I tried free-shaping, and was expecting too much and waiting too long to give Murphy a click. He gave up pretty quickly and just got up on the couch with me and sat down. It wasn't until I clicked for verrrrry small movements that I got him to do tons more stuff.

Here's my video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdHr79untd4

[Elizabura]

Hello - I read these comments a few weeks ago as I have just rescued a 10 month old Lab and didn't know what to do with her as she kept waking and barking none stop at 4/5/6 am.... I tried all sorts of things - but realistically she just wants me! So I've found a remedy and wanted to share it in case it can help others.
I bought a £15 baby monitor and she has the parent end in her room and I have the infant end in my room.
The first morning I told her to be quiet twice through the monitor and since then she hasn't barked at all !!!!. I think she is getting reassurance from hearing us through the monitor - coughing/snoring/chatting etc and this has calmed her down no end.