Help - starving dog gets up way too early

My first thought was that the food you've got her on is just not filling her up. What's the brand? Most "diet" dog foods are pretty lousy as far as nutrition, have a lot of carbs, which don't really keep you full. Dividing up the daily ration in to three meals might help as well, instead of an evening snack.

Yes there are foods that can help fill her up like veggies or green beans specifically.  Mix it in or go to the nutrition section and ask for their suggestions.  What is also very important is "what on the pugs schedule for the rest of the day".  For me it is very important that meals are scheduled and snacks (2 sessions) are provided in between.  After meals its sleep and then play, sleep, exercise....get the message.  The dog will learn the order that food will come.  What will also help is exercise the dog more to make the pug more tired at night.  Please know that a lot of dogs are most active at dawn and dusk.  I think you need to accomodate this and sometimes give up your sleep-ins.  Hope this helps.

Thanks houndlove.    We have her on Purina Beneful now, because we were told this "natural" dog food might work better than the Iams diet food we gave her earlier.

We also tried giving her green beans to fill her up, either during the day, or at night.   Since green beans don't have a lot of calories, maybe we should just give her lots of them if the evening, or with regular meals.  We give her any brand of "no salt added" green beans, typically about 1 or 2 handfuls.

Any additional suggestions are welcome.

Ken

I can not stress enough to you how NOT natural Beneful is. Even Iams isn't that great of a food, but Beneful is pretty much buttom of the barrel.  The business with Beneful being natural is all marketing, it is completely not true and I am really shocked your vet did not tell you this.

These are the ingredients for the Beneful diet formula:

Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, soybean hulls*, whole wheat flour, rice flour, chicken, soy flour, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), sugar, tricalcium phosphate, sorbitol, animal digest, water, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, dicalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), L-Lysine monohydrochloride, dried green beans, dried carrots, calcium carbonate, calcium propionate (a preservative), choline chloride, zinc sulfate, added color (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2), DL-Methionine, Vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate, Vitamin A supplement, niacin, Vitamin B-12 supplement, copper sulfate, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, biotin, garlic oil, thiamine hydrochloride, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamine mononitrate, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), calcium iodate, sodium selenite.

To contrast, this is an example of a high quality food's ingredients (just for the sake of comparison I'm using the food I feed which is Natural Balance):

Chicken, Brown Rice, Lamb Meal, Oatmeal, Barley, Duck Meal, Potatoes, Carrots, Chicken Fat (preserved with natural mixed tocopherols), Tomato Pomace, Natural Flavor, Canola Oil, Brewers Yeast, Salmon Meal, Salmon Oil, Whole Ground Flaxseed, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Taurine, Spinach, Parsley Flakes, Cranberry, Lysine, L-Carnitine, Yucca, Kelp, Vitamin E Supplement, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B-1), Manganese Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B-6), Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Riboflavin (Vitamin B-2), Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Folic Acid (Vitamin B).

In each, I've bolded quality sources of nutrients that your dog needs (remember, while dogs are technically omnivores, they need lots of meat as part of their diet to thrive). In ingredients lists, the closer to the beginning an ingredient is, the more of it there is in the food. By-product meal is basically beaks and feathers. It's different from chicken meal, which is chicken that has basically had it's water removed. By-product meal is not a quality meat source. "Animal digest" is an even more horrifying ingredient. From wikipedia, "animal digest" is  "a cooked-down broth" which can be made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from almost any source and no control is in place over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, euthanized at animal shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on."^[2  

Even if it doesn't solve your dog's hungriness problem, please consider feeding a higher quality food. Even Iams would be an improvement. 

Does she have run of the house?  If so, a timed feeder might work to let you sleep in.  My vet uses one for his cats.  It has a spinning top lid that covers food compartments and there's a timer so it only opens up at certain times.  He says the cats go a running when they hear it cranking.  Maybe you could put a portion of green beans in it and feed her early in the morning while still allowing you to sleep in.  Do you think she would destroy it to get at the food if she could smell it?  I second the veggie recommendations. 

A feeder like this one might work:

http://petsafe-warehouse.com/electronic_pet_feeder/electronic_pet_feeder.htm 

kreisman

Since our kids are gone, we'd much prefer to sleep until 8 at least. 

LOL How wonderful! Sorry, that threw me for a loop! Our cats don't let me sleep past 6 on the dot! 

I LOVE the feeder idea. You've gotten great advice here. The feeder, a better food, 3 meals a day. But you might also want to move her feedings 10 minutes at a time to a later hour. But you have to be consistent. Feed at 5:10 PM for a few days, then move it to 5:20 and so on. If you feed twice a day, it should be at the same hour. (6 PM and 6 AM for example)

Good luck!  

I'd be willing to bet that if this dog has no physical issues, that if you get her off the Beneful, which is just horrible food wrapped in a "natural" wrapper, that you will have less of a problem.  If you want to find a good food to put your dog on, you can visit this site for information:

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main 

You'll probably get some suggestions on the Nutrition threads, too.  Here are some alternatives: Innova, California Naturals, Canidae, Orijen, Pinnacle, Prairie, Solid Gold.  Some are better than others, but IMHO all are better than any product you could be getting at the supermarket. 

Thanks to all of you for the great input.  We are likely to use all the advice.   So far, we have started the green beans routine again.  We are about to change her food as well.  Also, what appears to be beneficial is slowly moving the dog's wake up time.  We simply refuse to feed her at 6:00AM, trying gently to get her back to sleep (with limited results on that front).   Slowly, we have been able to move the time to 6:30, or a bit later.   Whenever she wakes up early, we simply make her wait to be fed.  Its painful, but I think the results will be worth it.  

We will also check out the auto feeder, but I'm not sure that she won't rip it apart, trying to get the food.  If we can have her wait naturally, that would sure be the best solution.

 An interesting aside.....we used a pet sitter who had our dog in her home.  She absolutely loved the dog the first time she kept her overnight, praising her for being so affectionate. The next time she sat, which was for four daysf instead of one, her attititude changed 180 degrees, and she no longer wants to sit for her.   The difference?   The first night, she fed the dog when she awoke at 6:00.   The next night, our dog got up at 5, begging for food.  She obliged.  The next night it was 4, and following night 3:15.    Looks like our dog did a good job of training the sitter.

With that information, it becomes clearer to us, that we can train the dog rather than the dog training us. 

 Thanks again for all the timely and helpful input.

We simply refuse to feed her at 6:00AM, trying gently to get her back to sleep

As long as she has no medical issues, and you are feeding a decent food with good nutritional value, this is a great strategy.  But, you don't have to "coax her back to sleep.  Simply feed her (and maybe potty her), then put her back in her crate, or wherever she sleeps, and IGNORE her - no eye contact, no "be quiet", no nothin'.  After a while, she'll realize that her whining or begging gets her NOTHING.  She may get a bit more obnoxious for a little bit, but then should just resign herself to getting up when you get up:-) 

My Pom does the same thing ever since I changed her diet. She went from being fed 2 cups/day to 1cup/day to now 1/2 cup/day!! So likewise she's like "ummm excuse me... i'm hungry!!" I changed her diet drastically after realized what the bag says to feed is WAY too much!!

We always have called Kayla our "fatty monster" if given the opportunity she'd eat more than a human... I swear...

I give her 1/4 cup in the AM & 1/4 cup in the PM to even it up. If you are only feeding your dog ONCE a day that could be why??

Also try to give some snacks like bones or kong stuffing to have throughout the day.

Also the Diet food may not be the correct brand.

Another good suggestions is to not ask the Vet. Most Vets have no idea about Doggie diet. I personally went out and found a dog nutrition specialist.

Could you give her a Kong stuffed with goodies and then frozen (so she has to work a bit harder for it) at bedtime? Perhaps this would tide her over a bit.

 I, too, have a dog who thinks she's always starving. She's 8 lbs, but I swear she'd eat more than Legend if she could!

Perhaps you could also drop back her dinner time feeding.  My pap, Kirby is also a food glutton.  Since I often get up in the morning on the late side, I feed him dinner at 9pm.  It seems to let him tide over till morning much easier than my original earlier dinner feedings with him. 

I'd feed her Canidae Platinum, personally.

Maybe a carrot stick at bed time would help her make it til morning? Say... 11 pm, you say "bed time,  Puppy (you didn't mention her name... or post a picture... SHAME!!! LOL)" and hand her a piece of carrot. If she likes cold things, you can even FREEZE the carrot to make it last longer. A chunk of apple would work, too, or pretty much any crunchy veggie (not raw potato) or fruit that she might like, and have to chew at for a minute. It'll be something in her tummy, and something to satisfy her need to chew.

Personally I wouldn't cut back her portions less than a cup a day.  But do add the green beans, it won't hurt her.  And a better quality food will digest slower keeping her full longer.  Ignoring a whining dog is more good advise.  Good luck with your little gluten.  I have a 140 pounder who is just like her when it come to food and green beans has been very helpful in satisfying his hunger better.