Wake up Barks

In the morning, Charlie comes to our bedroom and either lets out a small whimper and/or start's barking. He does this on my wife's side of the bed, because he knows that she is the one that feeds him in the morning. During the weekdays, this is fine, since he gets us up around the time we are waking up, anyway. During the weekends, however, it is a bit of a pain.

We feed Charlie once a day, in the morning. He eats first and then goes on the line for a few minutes, outside.

He didn't start this behavior until, around 4 months ago, when we took him off of "Brand X" and cut his meal portions back a bit.

Would feeding him twice a day change his early morning behavior ?

To answer your question briefly, I don't know. We feed Cleo twice a day, but this is because she likes her food, and I think that this gives her something to look forward to, so we split her daily ration and give half in the morning and half in the early evening.

On the barking in the morning thing, Cleo does this too. She's two now and like an alarm clock starts every day between 7.30 and 8 am. As with you, this is not a problem during the working week, but less desirable at the weekend. Our solution is as follows. She sleeps in her crate in the kitchen and at the weekend when she barks at 7.30, one of us get up and lets her out, she then trots upstairs and sleeps in her basket outside our bedroom door. I think she just wants to be near us, but as we don't want her in the bedrom, she is not allowed to go there, so 'guarding' the door seems to be a good compromise for all.

Hopefully some one elase might have a better solution, but for what it's worth, this is what has worked for us.

Feeding him twice a day could help.

I also learned a good feeding tip from another board member. Don't feed them immediately when they wake up or immediately when they come inside after being out. They will expect it, and their enthusiasm can lead to misbehavior such as rushing through, or jumping at the door to come in - or to waking you up too early because they expect to be fed immediately.

We let our dogs out for potty when we get up in the morning, then we wait about an hour to feed them. It really makes a difference. It may take a week or so for your boy to get used to the new schedule.

If Charlie wakes you up early, he may need to go outside. So on weekends maybe he could go out to do his business early then come back to bed. I hope this helps.

It's always better to split their meals into two portions, it keeps their blood sugars up throughout the whole day.

You don't have to feed twice as much, just split the portion in half.

I'd imagine he's pretty ravenous by the morning on a once-a-day feeding.

Hope he sleeps in a wee bit too!

For most dogs I don;t think it matters if it is one or two meals, but I just feed the dogs a bit less than full rations in the morning and give them a james Wellbeloved dog biscuit at night, which is about the size of a third of a meal for them. That way they have some food before bedtime. But any treat before bedtime would likely suffice. I like to feed once a day -- dogs like other canids are geared to be gluttons then eat nothing for several days anyway -- some people even feed like this, though I wouldn't -- so I think they are pretty resilient to various feeding approaches but that's my opinion. Laura Lang, the breeder whose feeding page I often link to, recommends once a day meals even though she thinks two is often better, because so many people look at half a day's food for a cavalier sitting forlornly in a too-large food bowl (get a CAT size food dish for a cavalier!) and top up the dish, hence promoting obesity without noticing til suddenly the dog is fat. An extra handful for both meals is probably half again as much as a dog's full rations so if anyone opts for two meals a day, measure or weigh the portions and get a cat food sized bowl so that the food actually fills it. I use cat bowls for my dogs and for two of them, a full day's meal is LESS than half a bowl of food so it is very, very easy to overfeed.

On your problem -- I'd follow Cathy's advice. I actually just did this with my cats because they all used to start scratching at my door in the morning when they get their plate of wet food.