Changing the Schedule

We fed Moree and Smokey at 6am and 6pm, so I know that was the schedule Junebug was on when we first got her. But once we had two small dogs, we went to feeding once a day. And at some point, their feeding time became 3:30pm-4pm- basically, when I got home from work. And that worked fine for a long time.

Recently (in the last few months). Though, June started needing to get up every “morning” between 3am-5am in order to go do some business. That meant that I didn’t get a full night’s sleep, ever, as I’m the one that wakes up with the dogs. We could not figure what had changed with her that she now needed to go (and she did go) at that time.

We finally realized that nothing had changed with June. What had changed was C’s schedule. He’d been going to bed around 2am, but his class schedule this quarter now has him going to bed around midnight. That means that instead of getting outed around 2am when she could do her business, June was getting her last out of the night around midnight, too early for it to do her any good.

Who wouldn't want to get up in the middle of the night, every night, for this sweet face?

Since C really needs to keep to this midnight bedtime, and I really, really like being able to sleep through the night, we decided the best course of action was to change when we were feeding the dogs.

We took advantage of the long weekend to move their dinner time to 5:30pm-6pm. And then Tuesday I came home early enough that the dogs wouldn’t expect to be fed when I walked in the door. Since the change (so 4 nights), it’s mostly worked like a dream. I got 3 nights solid sleep without June waking me up.

Last night didn’t work so well because C is sick and I have a pulled muscle in my back. The dogs went out around 8:30pm and we were both crashed out by a little after 9pm. So when I woke up a little before 3am due to discomfort, all the dogs needed an out. But that was due to last night’s very unusual schedule for us.

But otherwise, our results seem good. A change in feeding time equals everyone sleeping through the night. I’m all for that.