Actually, the answer to this depends on the day of the week, and which "wake up call" you're considering.
Maggie, the older of my two dogs at nearly 4 years of age, is small (about 4.5 pounds). I don't think there have been more than a handful of nights since I've had her that she has been able to sleep all the way through the night without a potty call...generally around 2:45 or 3:00. She is, very quick about this...goes outside, pees and comes back to bed.
Since Molly has joined our family (last week), I drag her little butt (around 2 pounds) out of the crate to potty when Maggie does in the middle of the night.
Because I like getting home from work early, and being able to commute both ways in advance of the traffic, I leave for work at 6:00 weekdays. This means we're all getting up at around 5:00.
Left to their own devices...say on weekends, Maggie and Molly would cheerfully be "9:00 dogs". But it's me tossing them out in the cold (twice) before I put them in their puppy condos for the day. (Maggie has always been crated in a HUGE crate during the time I'm at work. When Molly was coming, I traded in the one huge crate, on two smaller crates...meant for dogs of 25 pounds...which I placed next to one another. Instant Yorkie Condos...I didn't think it was fair for Maggie to have to deal with the mess of a not yet house broken puppy in her crate. I wanted them, however to see one another and become friends. Seems to work for us...) |