Help with pup barking in the morning

alowe

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone might be able to give me some advice on the best way to deal with a little problem thats just started with our beloved pup. When we got her first, she use to sleep indoors, then after 4 weeks, and with warm weather, she now sleeps outside - which she's been doing for over 2 months now (she's 5 months old). She doesn't have a problem going out to bed, and sleeps very happily in her kennel. Each week-day morning, I get up about 6.30am, and take her into work with me. She gets a bit of food when we get in, and then gets to spend the day with her doggie friends, gets taken for walks, and generally has great fun.

Where the problem is ... recently, she's started to wake at 6am, or generally once it gets bright, and starts barking and scraping at our back door to get in. She did this at the weekend, and we ignored her until she calmed down, stopped barking, and then we let her in and paid her attention. However, I don't have time to do this week day mornings, as I'm in a rush to get to work. At the start, she only started barking when we were up in the house, and didn't let her in immediately, however over the last week, she's started to bark as soon as she wakes up - when we're not even moving around.

What i'm worried over is that she's getting into a bad habit, and is likely to annoy neighbours with her barking, especially at that hour of the morning. Is there anything we can do to help break this pattern???

Any advice / guidance / help would be very much appreciated.

jameshayes

You could possibly stop feeding her in the mornings and give her more food later on in the day.. she is probably waking up hungry and expects food...

This is just a guess but it's worth a try.. Is she still on 3 feeds a day or is she down to 2?

If she's on 3 you could this of giving her more food less often with 2 meals..

What breed is she?

yogidc26

My 6 month old lad was doing the same thing I went down on the second morning and just gave out to him really bad and let him know that I was not happy with him did not show him and affection at all for about 2 hours till he got back in to his bed and was going back to sleep. A to this day we don’t have a problem with him he just waits for us to get up. Hope this helps :rolleyes:

jameshayes

^^ could be a solution, but if it's a large breed she could just be hungry..

I've seen the problem with 2 bassets, just changed there feeding paterns and problem solved!

ceidefields

I dunno, we have two Scotties and they're up at the crack of dawn every morning. Thankfully we have a dog door flap and a fenced in garden so they can go outside themselves.

They used to bark a lot in the morning when they were puppies but seem to have quieted down at this point. Only bark at cats etc.

alowe

She's a lab, and is on two feeds at the moment.

What i'll try is to take her into work, and go back to her after an hour and feed her then. She's fine in the car into work though, just rests, but is extrememly excited once we get there. And also, at weekends, we'd never feed her immediately after greeting her, would always be at least a half hour .... Maybe she is just hungry. Might try a bigger feed in the evening, and only a little in the morning.

Thanks for advice ... will see how we get on.