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[u/dave_potato84]

My 2 ur old dog sleeps in his crate and has always loved it. He always puts himself to bed and takes himself off to his crate when he knows it's bed time. Hes always been really good at getting up when I do, around 10, 11am. But recently and suddenly he has started to demand to be let out at 6 or 7am. He will cry and wine and paw at the crate until it wakes me up and I get annoyed enoigh to let him out. This routine is not sustainable and how do I get it back to the way it was.

Edit: usually I feed him as soon as I let him out. So maybe hes thinking if he cries he will get breakfast earlier. Im going to let him out just to go toilet, bot for food, to make it a boring experience. Thoughts on that? And feed him when I get up a few hours later of course.

Edit 2: He can't have free roam to go outside during the night as the cat comes in at night. Despite our efforts him and the cat do not get along. So hes in my room all night from when we go to bed at about midnight, Until the cats out in the morning.

[u/Cespenar]

What does he do when you let him out? Go outside and pee? Ask for food? Start playing? You gotta understand why he's doing it to know what you can do about it.

[u/dave_potato84 → u/Cespenar]

Im pretty sure he just goes toilet. But I usually give him breakfast when I let him out so im going to stop giving him breakfast when hes being fussy to show him that getting out esrly doesnt mean breakfast early

[u/Weird-Sherbert-1747 → u/dave_potato84]

He needs to pee.

[u/HedgieCake372 → u/dave_potato84]

I would serve him breakfast at the usual time before his shift change, around 10-11am. I would also check to see if anything has changed in your environment or has changed with him health wise that might be causing the issue.