# Barking in the morning for attention



## jaina8851 (Apr 19, 2014)

I know there are a lot of threads on here about barking in the morning, but I didn't really find anything that describes our situation.

Toby is 14 weeks now, and every morning he incessantly barks. His crate is on the other side of the house from our bedroom.

When we first got him, I didn't mind the barking because it woke us up and let us know that he needed to go out. He has never soiled in his crate, so it made crate training pretty simple. 

Now, however, I would really like him to stop. I know that we have inadvertently been rewarding this behavior for the past six weeks, but I don't think it is too late to undo it (at least I hope not!). 

The problem is that he is not being woken up by us; he does not hear us moving or hear our alarm clock. In fact, as soon as he does hear us getting out of bed or the door knob to our bedroom moving, he shuts up. He knows that he does not get let out of his crate if he is barking, so once he knows that he has our attention, he goes quiet. I have tried waiting until he stops barking before I even touch the door knob, but so far, he just doesn't quiet down, and I don't want him to soil his crate if I wait it out too long.

Right now, our routine is that he starts barking around 5am. My husband or I gets up, lets him out only to potty, and then puts him immediately back in the crate. No attention, no cuddles, just business. Then he usually will be quiet for another 15-30 mins before he starts in again. He literally just wants attention and cuddles, because if I let him out at that time, he falls asleep on my lap. If you're still that tired, pup, why can't you just sleep longer in your crate?! Because I sure would like to be sleeping longer in my own bed! 

Does anyone have any suggestions? I know some puppies just get up super early in the morning, and if that's the case, fine, but I just could do without the barking. Thanks


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## sniz (Mar 23, 2014)

similar situation with us. Walt screams his head off when we put him in his crate for the night, that lasts 5 minutes max. then not a peep typically until 3-4am when he starts again because we think he has to go out. I get up doing my husbandly duty as my wife is pregnant and let him out and he always poops and pees right away. Then right back in his crate and back to bed for me. He may bark for 30 seconds this time then he falls asleep.

then he starts again normally 6-7am, i'm up again.

He pooped in his crate the 1st 2 nights but it was very runny so I guess he couldn't hold it. Since then no accidents other than he did pee last night in his crate, my fault for letting take a longgg drink before bed....duh!

So i'm also wondering, should I just flat out ignore him and test his ability to hold it through the night or am I doing the right thing by getting him outside during the night.

He is 9 weeks today.

sorry OP, similar situation but I don't have a solution to offer.


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## jaina8851 (Apr 19, 2014)

The first few weeks with Toby, the first wakeup was around 4am as well. That was the time when I was glad that he woke us up. Now he does sleep through the night, but it doesn't matter if he goes to bed at 10pm or goes to bed at midnight... he is always awake right around 5am. Toby fortunately goes to his crate quietly and doesn't bark when we put him in there... it's almost as if he wakes up and the morning and panics like "HELLO? ANYONE HOME? DID YOU GUYS LEAVE IN THE NIGHT? WHERE ARE YOU!?!"


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## Pooklook (Mar 10, 2014)

*It's all about routine...*



jaina8851 said:


> Does anyone have any suggestions? I know some puppies just get up super early in the morning, and if that's the case, fine, but I just could do without the barking. Thanks


Hi there, I suggest you take a gradual approach to delay his biological clock or routine he is used to little by little, dogs love and thrive with routine (they can be sleeping soundly and at the exact time they usually eat they'll just be up and awake in an instant waiting or calling for their food)
Try making him wait (ignoring his barking) by adding five more minutes each day from the original time he is used to.
Then you may increase to ten minutes every other day or so. The goal would be for him to in the end get used to YOUR own routine schedule that works better for you. You'll see that before you know it you'll be the one waking him up and nudging him to get up to go out and do his business.

Good luck!:crossfing

Oh, and about the barking, as long as you let him relieve himself and know he's not going to have an accident, just be very strong and patient and ignore ...he'll get it at some point that his barking is not what's making things happen.


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## Rkaymay (May 12, 2014)

I don't know what to tell you about the barking. As for the waking up early, what time are you feeding him? Zelda woke up at 7 am for a long time because I fed her when she woke up. She didn't need to pee terribly bad, but she loves food. So I started withholding her food until approximately 9 am. Now our schedule is something like wake up at 8/9, eat, bathroom, kennel, sleep for 2 more hours, up for good.

Maybe cover his kennel up? Zelda whines like crazy if her kennel's uncovered, but is quiet as a mouse when we cover it up. Somehow my fiancé totally sleeps through her whining - no idea how.


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## cubbysan (Mar 13, 2007)

My breeder's recommendation was to get up with them no later than 6:30 am as puppies. Sailor barks at 5:30, let her out and then she goes back to bed for another hour. I see no problem with them barking in the morning to go out. It is just part of the sacrifices we make when we choose to have a puppy. 

As they get older, they will sleep in later, but that s when they are adults.


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## jaina8851 (Apr 19, 2014)

cubbysan said:


> My breeder's recommendation was to get up with them no later than 6:30 am as puppies. Sailor barks at 5:30, let her out and then she goes back to bed for another hour. I see no problem with them barking in the morning to go out. It is just part of the sacrifices we make when we choose to have a puppy.
> 
> As they get older, they will sleep in later, but that s when they are adults.


That is really reassuring.... I was worried that I was setting up this barking routine for life!! Sacrifices for puppies is fine, but I don't feel like hearing a big-dog bark waking up my neighborhood every morning for the next fifteen (hopefully!!  ) years!!!! 

He is such a stinker though, this morning he barked at 4:45am, and we let him out to pee even though my rule lately has been "no relenting to the dog before 5am." He has a uti so even though I am trying to work on this behavior, I'm being a little more lenient than usual until I am sure that he isn't going to pee in his crate. After his early pee, he went back to sleep, just like you described for Sailor, and he barked again RIGHT when I was about to get up and give him a treat for NOT barking :doh: And wouldn't you know, he is fast asleep again at the foot of the couch. He really just wants to be near his people, he isn't hungry, and he is empty. Too bad for him, I will not budge about dogs in the bedroom. :


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## Pooklook (Mar 10, 2014)

jaina8851 said:


> He really just wants to be near his people


...that's probably the best way to describe a puppy (particularly a Golden puppy)
my Polar has slowly transition from something similar to your case to sync his routine trip to nature with my wake-up time. Now, even if he wakes a few minutes before my alarm goes off (I've seen him while pretending to still be asleep) he'll just sit up and wait patiently in his crate until I get up.
You'll see that in no time he'll get used to your routine it and all this will be a thing of the past.
good luck!:crossfing


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## Susan: w/ Summit we climb (Jun 12, 2014)

I used to think we had a puppy barking problem, since our now almost-15-week-old puppy was doing a lot of loud early morning barking in his crate, but he has been doing less and less of it until finally today, when he did no barking in his crate.

The end is in sight!

We were surprised by all the barking, since our last Golden Haley only barked as a brief alert signal when he really thought there was something wrong going on outside.


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## Bentleysmom (Aug 11, 2012)

We went through that stage too. I was afraid that I had a morning Golden, we are not morning people  
As Bentley grew he stopped (I wish he would stop barking outside but that's a different story )
Now he will be 2 yrs old in a couple of weeks and he's NOT a morning dog. In fact, he loves to sleep in and if I have something that I have to do before 10:30 AM I have to actually make him get up to go outside to do his biz. There are days that he wants to sleep until noon. Even Ky thinks that's excessive 
Good luck. It will pass.


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## Brinkleythegolden (Jun 18, 2012)

You might want to try putting his crate in your room with you at night. Goldens love to be with their people. We've done this with all 3 of our goldens and have never had a barking issue.


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## MissSandy (Oct 9, 2013)

Wilson was doing this about a month ago...he had started barking earlier and earlier and earlier and had gotten to about 4.30am and then it got worse because I'm a shift worker and I came home one morning at 2am...I don't turn lights on, I sneak in and usually it was never an issue but this one morning he woke and barked and barked and barked for 3 hours straight :uhoh: After an hour and a half of trying to ignore him, I got up and took him outside in case he needed to wee (even though he's never needed to before), then when he went straight back to barking in the crate again we caved and my partner went and slept on the lounge so he could see him and that stopped him. I was back on a night shift that night and we were desperate so we went and bought a bark thing...one that you sit near them and if they bark it emits a sound they don't like. It was $80....it had fairly bad reviews (as in, it doesn't help) but we had to try SOMETHING. We live in an area where houses are pretty close to each other and the neighbours would have heard him for sure.

Honestly....best $80 I've ever spent in my life!! We never heard him bark but obviously he did and didn't like the noise because he's never barked since then while in his crate. We don't need him to bark to get us up and let him out cause one of us is up by 6.30am everyday anyway. As soon as he was out we turned it off (take the batteries out) because we don't want to either desensitise him to it or have him scared of barking ever. Used it for a week and then stopped and the barking hasn't restarted.


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## ktkins7 (Jul 20, 2013)

I never had this problem with the barking with Ella, but maybe if you put the crate in your room so he is closer to you then that would help.

But like as others mentioned, it does get better. Even though she didn't usually bark, Ella would wake up at the crack of dawn. Now she has no problem sleeping in. She now sleeps on my bed and sometimes she will wake me up in the morning when she repositions herself, but she goes right back to sleep. I slept until 9:30am this morning and had no problems with her (I work 4pm-midnight so I don't like having to get up real early). So he will grow out of it sooner or later.


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## jaina8851 (Apr 19, 2014)

All of these replies are very reassuring!! As I said earlier, I was quite concerned that I was enforcing a life-long habit of barking in the morning. I'm glad to hear that so many other puppies do this and just grow out of it.

As far as putting him in our room, our bedroom doesn't have the floor space to accommodate his crate, and we just don't want him in our bedroom. It's off limits for the puppy... the rest of the house will soon have enough dog hair, I don't want it in my bedroom as well  He gets plenty of cuddles elsewhere and he doesn't have a problem going in to his crate for sleeping at night. The morning routine itself isn't even that much of an issue, just the barking. I would say that I hope he grows out of this soon, but he is growing so fast right now that I don't think I want him growing any faster!!!


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## sniz (Mar 23, 2014)

I put Walt in our room on my side of the bed 4 nights ago. Huge improvement! 4 full nights of sleep felt great.

He just wants to be near us.


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## jaina8851 (Apr 19, 2014)

An update! We traveled to Long Island this past weekend and, sure enough, when we were sleeping near him, Toby was able to sleep in until 7am without soiling his crate. I even saw him at 5:45am, just looking at me peacefully, before he rolled over and went back to sleep. We still aren't willing to budge on having the crate in our room, so now we are doing a bit of tough love 'bark it out' since we got back on Sunday... and this morning, he didn't bark at all!!! I'm hoping this trend continues...


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