Waking dog

[Delphinus]

Hi everyone,

My dachshund is 13 years old and has recently - for the last month - been waking up around 4 AM. That's at least an hour, closer to an hour and a half, earlier than what we've been used to for years. All attempts to get her to sleep through the night have failed. Praise hasn't worked and neither has punishment. Her diet hasn't changed; she's active; goes for walks; is awake for hours when I'm in the kitchen and is in all ways I can see healthy.

Have any of you ever experienced this and, if so, what advice can you share?

Thank you!

[TorchTheWitch]

1. I'm confused

Is there a reason this matters? Any dog or cat I've lived with or owned slept when they felt like it and were awake when they felt like it. I've never known any pet to have such a ridged sleep or wake time and certaintly not their entire life.

We all change as we age. Maybe the dog just doesn't need as much sleep as she used to. Maybe she needs to go the bathroom more frequently and that's waking her up earlier. Maybe she has gas. Maybe she has arthritis and pain or discomfort wakes her. Maybe there's some other medical issue. Unless she's doing something when she wakes up that is annoying to you I'm not seeing that her waking up a little earlier than customary is a problem. I'm actually more astounded that she has such a ridged sleep schedule and has stuck to it her whole life up till now. I've seriously never heard of this before with cats or dogs or rodents or birds or anything else. Come to think of it, I can't think of any humans with a such a ridged sleep/wake schedule every day of their entire lives with or without the aid of an alarm clock.

I can see this being a problem if the dog is waking up this early and then doing something that wakes you up thereby causing sleep/wake problems for you, but that would be more of an issue of stopping the behavior that is waking you up, not stopping her from waking up.

[Delphinus]

2. Yes,

she is waking us up and I am finding it very difficult to function on five or six hours of sleep.

[TorchTheWitch]

6. Ok, that makes more sense

So it's not her waking up earlier that's the problem it's that she is waking YOU up earlier. That can certainly be a problem.

First, I'd take her to vet and make sure there is nothing physically wrong.

What does she do to wake you up, and is she waking you up because she wants or needs something? Is she just waking you up because she just feels like it, or is she needing to go to the bathroom, or wants to eat/drink or has some other kind of need? How is she waking you up? Does she bark, climb in the bed, etc.? If it's barking that might be harder to deal with than if she was climbing in the bed or something like that.

If she's waking you because she needs to go to the bathroom, it may be that she needs an indoor potty station to use at that time so she can go without needing to wake you to let her out. Kind of a drag, but these things some times happen when a dog gets older.

If she's waking you for no apparent reason then probably the best thing to do is figure out a way to separate her from your bedroom so that whatever she's doing to wake you up won't wake you up anymore. Of course, depending on the size of the home and what she's doing to wake you (like barking) this could be a real problem.

Other than that, the only thing I can think of to do would be to adjust her giong to bed time so that she'll sleep longer in the morning.

It's difficult to know what to do about it without knowing the details of why she's waking you up, how she's waking you up and whether or not she's waking you up because she needs something like she needs to go to the bathroom or something like that.

First thing you should do is get her a check up to see if there's some physical reason as to why she's waking up earlier and waking you up. Even mild arthritis can make sleeping for long stretches uncomfortable for dogs and without some good pain pills or even just a comfy bed to sleep on keeps them from needing to get up and down more frequently. Make sure that the vet knows about the waking up problem so they know to look for something that might be very mild and not normally a medical concern.

Hope that helps and you can get back to getting a full night's sleep again.

[livetohike]

3. Is she waking you up to go to the bathroom? Is she just wandering around the house?

My sister's beagle mix had doggy dementia and would do a lot of wandering around the house at odd hours. I would just keep an eye on her behavior and give the vet a call if you see anything unusual going on.

[Irishonly]

4. I would call the vet and make sure it isn't a health problem

My dogs get up at 6:00 every morning and they are the best alarm clock. First thing every morning we go on our morning constitutional. They do not understand mom wanting a day off. LOL

[iscooterliberally]

5. Has anything changed with you or anyone else in your family?

Any new neighbors, or anything like that? Sometimes it's an external change that you normally wouldn't notice, but it could be a big deal to your dog. Maybe you have an outside vistor that started to show up in your yard at night? I'm talking critters here. Maybe you have a neighbor that had a weird schedule change and is coming or going at that hour? I agree with everyone else that you should go to the vet for a check up. Good luck with your doxie!

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Our dogs react to deer in the yard

We absolutely can not hear them, but the dogs do. And they want AT 'em.!

[iscooterliberally]

8. Dogs are the best! oh and cats too! n/t