waking up early in morning

[Dinah]

Advice needed please.  One of my own cockers has taken to waking up between 5 and 5.30 in the morning.  She sleeps downstairs with the others, but starts whining, not stopping until I go down to her.  This is quite recent, but I suspect it is becoming learnt behaviour as I foster and a recent dog was an early riser too.  Trouble is, with fosters, once they are awake I've got up early to let them out as part of their housetraining.  I've tried varying the time I feed the dogs at night and also the time I let them out for a last wee in the garden.  I've also gone downstairs in the morning, ignored the dogs , made a drink then gone upstairs again, but can't really leave them too long to get on with it because I want to keep my neighbours sweet!

[supergirl]

Could be a result of the lighter mornings maybe, birds are chirping earlier.  Does she sleep in a crate at all, as you could cover with a blanket.  Alternatively try and make sure that the room stays dark.

[black taz]

i would have said earlier mornings too.  Do you have blackout curtains?

[Geordietyke]

My two daughters are also up with the larks at around 6.30 (therefore Odie is woken up too with their noise) so I do think it's because of the light mornings, it should be better when the clocks go forward next week (crossing fingers ).

[Dinah]

Thanks for your replies.  Daisy isn't crated.  I adopted her a couple of years ago (ex puppy farm breeder), tried a crate but she just hated being confined.  Fingers crossed then that it's a daylight issue and when the clocks change, she might.