Dog Community

4:00AM and WIRED!

Posted : 8/27/2006 11:48:42 AM

Hi, I'm new to the board. Hope someone can give us some feedback! A little background-we have a 3 month old female chocolate lab- Mocha- We've had her for exactly a month now and love her to bits. She's a great pup, smart, really treat driven. Can sit, do "down" and handles walking on a leash well.The first week we had her, she slept (amazingly) from 11:00-5:30/6:00AM with one poop and pee break-then back to sleep. Over the past few weeks, no matter how late we keep her up(-last night was midnigh)t- she wakes up EXACTLY at 4:00AM for her poop and pee, but is WIRED-won't settle down again, we don't engage in play or talk and place her back in her crate- in an adjacent walk in closet like room visible from our bed. She likes her crate-no probs. there. A friend recommended "Rescue Remedy" ( a natural-herbally-flower essence "stress reliever";) She's immune to that! We give her chewies etc.My husband lays by the crate to get her to stop barking-but the floor is hard! We think that may be giving her the wrong message. Any ideas!? Thanks

Xerxes

Posted : 8/27/2006 11:59:23 AM

My only feedback is this: When my pup was 3 months old, we were up every 3-4 hours going potty anyways. The command I placed on is "hurry up" and the command for #2 is "go potty." After he did his business, we went back to bed. No exceptions.

Lab puppies really want to be a part of the pack. Is the crate in your room, can you put it there? Also a great deal of exercise in short bursts is necessary for Labs. They have inexhaustible energy for quite a few months. Two or 3 walks a day is nothing. This age is perfect for teaching short retrieves, and other fun things. Chewies are good, but interactive games are much better.

Damarcus Damarcus

Posted : 8/27/2006 8:35:09 PM

She still has too much energy to sleep and when she have uses the porchroom make sure you dont let her play around or nothing because then she will think it is playtime.Put her back in her crate next too you and then first thing in the morning wake her up if she goes back to sleep and WORK THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF HER THEY LOVE TO BE SO TIRED THEY CANT WALK TO THE CRATE LOL.

mudpuppy

Posted : 8/28/2006 9:19:47 AM

She's just getting started. Her energy levels are going to keep going up, up, and up as she gets older. Just keeping her "awake" until midnight isn't good enough-- run her to exhaustion with fetch games.

moochaz

Posted : 8/28/2006 6:42:09 PM

Thanks for the feedback- we DO give her a lot of exercise. 3-4 walks a day-if she plays along. Sometimes she won't and we play fetch in the back yard. She does get tired and crashes around 10:00 pm. It's funny trying to wake her, she plays along for a few minutes, then walks away from us and crashes again! The past 2 nights she was up again at 4:00AM (crate is 6 feet from our bed-she can see us)-my husband thinks she is part Swiss due to her accurate sense of time.Pooped, peed (has a code word) and barked her head off again. We let her bark it out, after 20 mins. she gave up and slept and chewed a chewie for another hour. Progress maybe. She soon will have her 3rd round of shots etc. and will be ready for the dog park in our neighborhood. here we come!!

mudpuppy

Posted : 8/29/2006 8:23:40 AM

a hard 10 minutes of fetching will do more to tire her than any leash-walk. I'd recommend ONE leash walk, and five or six short fetching sessions per day. Try asking her for a sit, down, silly trick, whatever, before each toss of the toy-- mental and physical work.