grown up baby

Question
Hi, thanks in advance.  I have a 14 month old english bulldog.  He is house trained for the most part.  I have 2 questions, semi related.  1- he still has to sleep in his kennel that i used to house train him.  He wont sleep anywhere else, he rips beds that ive bought and prefers the kennel, thats not a problem.  The problem is that i still have to lock the kennel because he would go in the house without a problem.  He wont do it during the day, and when we are gone he would try his best to hold it.  However at night, he has no problem going, without warning.  During the day i have to take him out often, its guess work, he wont tell me when he has to go, he just holds it until i take him out.  How can i teach him to give me a signal? The second question is this.  He sleeps with me in my room, inside his locked kennel, but he has to to every morning at 6 am.  I get back from work a bit past midnight, therefore i dont wake up until 8 am.  This becomes a bit stressful because i barely get 6 hours of sleep and i have to wake up to take him out, then i have trouble going back to sleep.  My wife doesnt feed him anything at all past 4 pm.  And she puts him to bed at 10pm everynight, but she makes sure that he goes before bed and he always does.  Still he has to wake up at 6am to go, then he goes right back to sleep until 10 am.  How can i make him not go so early?  He is not a puppy anymore, if he goes at 10 pm, he shouldnt have to go again at 6 am, and thats all he wants, because right after he is taken outside to go, he comes back in and sleeps sometimes past 10 am.  Please help.

Answer
Dear Michael,

Your dog is normal.  You may have known other dogs who have slightly different schedules, but for a 14 month old dog to have to get a potty break after 8 hours in the kennel does not surprise me at all.  My advice is to have your wife exercise him more vigorously before the 10pm bedtime, and then you take him out for another potty run at midnight when you get home.  This should help to gradually make his am potty run a later time.

Each day after you've started pottying him at midnight, get up 10 minutes later than the day before (6:10am, 6:20am, etc.) until you're getting up at 7am everyday, or even 8am every day if he can handle it.  Many dogs really are up with the sun so keep the shades drawn to keep him from finding out that it's dawn.  

Be good to this dog.  He sounds like a very good boy, but he is still pretty much still a pup and won't be acting like a sleep-in old dog until he's at least 3 oor 4.  I find that a lot of people forget what it's like to have a young dog in the house because the last dog was "old" for 10 years.  Your guy is normal.

As far as letting you know, try putting a bell on the door handle and hit it every time you bring him out.  He may follow suit and start ringing the bell to get out.

Good luck!
Suzanne Harris, BSc CPDT
http://www.dogdaysUSA.com