We have a gorgeous 11 month old cavalier/poodle.
Very quiet for first few months, very social and playful but rarely barked.
She sleeps downstairs on the couch. She was crate trained, but didn’t seem keen on her crate from 8 months so we left her sleeping on her bed up on the couch.
For the past 6 weeks - she has been barking persistently in the morning.
It started from 7am if we weren’t already up, and has gotten progressively earlier, now it’s about 6am.
We’ve tried:
- going down, bringing her out to pee and bringing her back in
- bringing her for a brief lap of the block in case she needs to poop
- going down to her but ignoring her, trying not to socially reward the barking
- ignoring her completely (we’ve left her for progressively long periods of time, over several mornings in a row, up to almost an hour, she doesn’t stop, then we have to get up for work anyway)
- going down, telling her not to bark, and leaving her again. She seems to settle for 2-3 minutes when we do this then she will start barking again.
Nothing has improved the barking. Once we go down all she wants is cuddles and sometimes play, but mostly wants to be up on our laps.
She gets 2-3 walks daily, lots of play, husband works from home so she has someone with her most of the time although we try leave her for 1-2 hours a few times a week so she is used to being by herself. She seems like a very happy dog otherwise, doesn’t bark at other dogs on walks, not generally a reactive dog.
HELP 🥲