We have three dogs. Two of them sleep together in the same crib, the other sleeps by himself. We have a two-story house, and when we finished remodeling, we had a more-or-less dedicated “dog room” downstairs. We put in a very large wire crate for the pair, and a small one for the loner. The room is under out bedroom. We would put the dogs in their room to sleep, and without fail, the two sleeping together would start barking early in the morning. We tried everything we could think of, but the best we could do is delay their barking. The would get up before us, so it was pretty annoying.
Finally, I suggested that we try letting them sleep upstairs. We already had a crib and crate for them in the living room, so we could close them up while my wife was making dinner. The living room is next to our bedroom, separated by a short hall. Since doing this, they have not barked once. They wait for me to get up and let them out, (and are pretty vocal when they know that they are going to get fed), but until I actually get up and leave the bedroom, they are perfectly quiet.
I can’t figure out what the difference is? Maybe they know that we are just around the corner? We sleep with the bedroom door closed, but they might be able to hear us in there.
Thoughts?
Was it barking to go out, or barking at a noise outside? Is it possible that when they were downstairs, they more easily heard morning street sounds like the newspaper being delivered, neighbors leaving to work, etc? It could be that being further away from you they are just more on edge and more easily triggered.
There may have been slightly more noise downstairs, but I can’t think the difference is significant, especially since this happened every day.
As for why they were barking - who knows? Part of it was needing to go out, maybe more of it was they were hungry, and some of it was “we are up, let’s get moving, folks!"
My dog is just more on edge when he’s farther away from us. He’s at his most relaxed when we’re all together in the same room. When we’re in different parts of the house, he’s more likely to bark at street noises.just my WAG (pun intended).
Yes, that might be a big contributor. If I need to leave the bedroom late at night, often the big dog will be awake, and thumps his tail, so maybe he just knows that we are close by, and feels more comfortable.
Remember that dogs don’t necessarily follow human logic and sometimes behave in ways we don’t understand. My dog has numerous places to sleep, including on our bed, but usually sleeps in one of the three doggie beds. We have a dog bed in our master bedroom closet and two in the great room about 12 feet apart. We have an evening ritual when I go to bed that involves snacks and horsing around for a while before I turn off the lights. Once the lights are off, he decides where to sleep, which seems completely random. The good news is that he likes to sleep in, so I invariably get up long before he wakes up wherever he happens to be sleeping.
The dogs probably have a good idea when you’ll get up if they are close by and can observe you. Dogs are pretty smart about that but isolate them and they’ll find their own time to wake up in the morning. They are helping you out by barking because they think you are too dumb to know it’s time to get up.