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I have two dogs (a 4 year old weimaraner, and 1 year old Great Dane). The two of them are extremely early risers and in the past month, have been rising earlier and earlier.

This past week I decided enough was enough and began to implement some changes. What I'm looking for are either some validations that I am on the right track, or some suggestions!

My actions have included putting a baby gate at the end of the hallway so that they can not come up to the bedroom door and scratch at it, trying to ignore the whining and pawing at the baby gate as much as possible.

From what I can gather, the weimaraner is displaying this behaviour because he wants FOOD. As a result, I have stopped feeding him as soon as I get up (I used to do this) and am now waiting about an hour to feed him.
The dane wants into the bedroom to get up on the bed. I have also put a stop to this (simply by closing the door once I am up to not allow her in).

My weimaraner does not use a crate. I rescued both dogs and when I got him (he was 1 1/2 years) he started losing it EVERY time I put him in the crate (peeing/pooing in it, getting himself so worked up that he was dehydrated, wrecking the metal crate, and barking). I rent out my basement apartment and the noise was driving them nuts). My dane is crate trained. I have started putting her in the crate at nights and she goes in and I have no problem at night with her once she is in the crate. The weim is another story.

I've also tried feeding him later in the evening to help with the apparent "hunger", but that has not helped either.
Any validations or suggestions would be of great help.....I'm exhausted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do you feel about them sleeping in your room on the floor in their own bed? Some may dispute this but I am a big believer in the pack.
Then I guess you will face a whole new bunch of problems, training them to that routine.

Actually, they used to sleep in the room with me, but would not stay off the bed and were quite sneaky about getting up on the bed during the night, so I removed them from the bedroom in June.

Hi - you sound like a great dog parent. First for rescuing, and now for trying to fix the issues. I'm not a big believer in baby gates most of the time - if a dog respects you, he respects your decisions about where, when, how etc. I would recommend that you read Brad's first two chapters from his book which can be downloaded free from the main page of website. If you want to have dogs that respect you - you need to do the whole routine. Fixing just one or two things that seem to stem from a lack of respect of your alpha role can be difficult. Even if your dogs are older, start like they are puppies.

As for your weimerainer being afraid of a crate. It sounds like someone used one as a punishment and he is terrified of them now. If you can get ahold of one that you can remove the front door from and start him over with putting a bone to chew on inside or something that he will at least go in and come out again. Since he loves food try feeding him in one but leave the door open or off. It will take a long time to get him used to seeing the crate as a nice place to be.

Good luck!

Sounds to me like your dogs are "playing" you!

I have had the same issue over the last few months. Keymo's reasoning for getting up wasn't hunger, it was to go out and pee most times, other times I think , just because he COULD get us up for some company - he did.

Think of when you're sick with a really bad cold. You wake up in the middle of the night to blow your nose, take cold medicine, pee - whatever.
Maybe it's around the same time of night. You know - your nose is now stuffed or your medince has worn off.
So you get up.
Let's say it's 1am.
A few days of this and even though you feel much better, you can't seem to break the habit of getting up in the middle of the night around 1am.
It's simply that your body has easily developped the HABIT of geting up at that time. And you have to break yourself of it.
Maybe the next day you stay up really late, so that you're REALLY tierd, then you actually sleep through the night.
Guess what ? Bad habit broken.

The same thing happened with Keymo. He got into a BAD habit of getting us up around 1am to go out for a pee. I think it started one night when we had a thunder & rain storm.
He woke up and of course, needed to go out to pee.
So we took him.
Over the next couple of week, crap if we didn't have to get up every night!
Finally - one night he woke up and barked as usual. I said - Keymo goodnight go to sleep.
And we ignored him the next few barks.
He went back to sleep.
Bad habit broken.
Sounds easy. It really is. Just ignore them trying to wake you up. Don't say anything to them if you have to. Don't let them know they woke you up.
If they don't succeed they'll stop trying.

A good thing to teach is go to bed, because I work nights, Bayley has learned that I sleep during the day and she always stays in the living room or in her crate when I'm sleeping. I also work days which involves getting up at 5 am so she's learned that she stays in her crate and doesn't get up until granma gets up a bit later. Took a bit of time but she doesn't have any problems with it now. We've been on that schedule for over a year now. The only time she's gotten up in the middle of the night is when she might have a bit of an upset tummy then she comes and gets me. She always goes back to her regular bedtime routine though.

If your dog won't stay off the bed and won't accept the crate and you want to go with the bed beside your bed idea, maybe a screw hook in the wall will work. You get them at the hardware store and they look like this....
http://www.tractorsupply.com/wcsstore/ConsumerDirectStorefrontAssetStore/images/products/600/3541461.jpg

You have to screw them into a stud though for them to hold and you attatch a leash to them. I have one in my livingroom as an alternative to crating/baby gates/umbilical if for whatever reason I don't want to do any of those at the time. Only problem I've ever had with them is Deeohgee nibbling on the wall when she was here as a teenager! lol

I agree with Anne about letting them sleep in the room with you. Maybe try keeping their leashes on and tie them to something (the door knob? a heavy dresser?) so they can't get up on the bed. I bet if you did that, with lots of umbilical work it wouldn't be long before they understood that they're not allowed on the bed.
Also, maybe you could try getting them dog beds (if you don't already) and see if that helps them want to stay off your bed. I actually used an old pillow and an old comforter crumpled up and my dog loves it for napping! She also sleeps under the bed most nights though.
Oh yah and Mayasmom was right when she recommended Brad's book. It will really help you with their training.

Good luck!

Nathalie