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Every night at 11 pm, my dog locks me in my bedroom, and then at 7 am he puts his nose in my face to start the day — which can be a problem when Daylight Saving Time comes around.
When the clock moved forward an hour on March 10, I would know that Milo and I would have to adjust to the routine, but he wouldn’t.
And that can be a bigger problem than it seems. Although it’s only an hour shift, the switch to Daylight Saving Time can significantly affect our circadian rhythms, says sleep expert Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta in a previous article. Dasgupta is an associate professor of clinical medicine at Huntington Health in Pasadena, California.
Fortunately, there are ways to make the transition easier for your cats and dogs — and in turn, yourself.
Don’t put your cats on a schedule
The switch to Daylight Saving Time shouldn’t be an issue at all for your cat as certified cat behavior experts Linda Hall and Rita Reimers of the Cat Behavior Alliance recommend not having Fluffy on a schedule for begin.
Because domestic cats depend on their humans to eat, a cat that normally eats at 7 a.m. will start to worry if 7:05 rolls around and the food bowl is empty, Hall said.
Instead, Hall and Reimers recommend using routines and phrases to signal that food is coming. And make sure feeding isn’t the first thing you do in the morning, or else you’ll have a feline friend who’s bothering you every time you wake up at night, Reimers adds.
Hall always plays with her cats for a few minutes before feeding, and now they know not to panic for food if play time hasn’t arrived yet. Reimers asks her cats “anything to eat?” and that phrase means they can be excited for breakfast.
In the wild, cats usually hunt at dusk and dawn, so that’s probably when they’ll be most active. If you don’t want to be woken up by a playful cat in the wee hours of the morning, Hall recommends placing toys and enrichment activities around the house before bedtime so your pet has something to do before you wake up.
Turn your dog’s clock back
Dr. Jerry Klein has two dogs, a sibling pair. One is loose, and the other is a dog alarm clock, he said.
“Literally, 6:25 in the morning … Zane was there ready to go,” said Klein, chief veterinary officer of the American Kennel Club.
How strict your dog’s morning routine is depends on their personality, but hunting and sporting dogs may be a little more willing to be up and raring to go, Klein said.
“They hunt at dawn,” he added. “Dogs are generally as a group more active in the early morning hours because by nature, they do the hunting in the morning.”
You may not want to spend your morning hunting in the kitchen for their food bowl an hour earlier, where you can start making arrangements for your dog now.
“The biggest thing is to stick to a schedule and be pretty consistent about it,” Klein said.
Then, you can inch your schedule back or forward by 15 minutes each day to adjust when your dog thinks all of his favorite activities will happen — like when they eat, go outside, go for a walk or even when they’re done. the bowl of water for the night , He added.
Similar to the incremental transitions that experts recommend for children, easing your furry friends into changes a few minutes at a time over a few days is more doable than a sudden one-hour overhaul.
Have patience for puppies
If you have a younger dog – especially one who is working on house training – it’s important to put some thought and patience into the time change.
“You have to be more sensitive to their cues because they can’t handle it like older dogs,” Klein says.
To set up a training puppy for success, adjust the timing of the last trip outside for the day, including how late you want your pet to sleep, so the dog doesn’t hold its bladder for an hour. for longer. , he said.
Because unlike older dogs, puppies often can’t wait much longer, Klein said.
Trust your pets
Even if you’re not ahead of the time change enough and you find an animal pawing at your face an hour before you want them to, it should resolve within a few days, Klein says.
“The good news is, most pets — dogs primarily — adjust well,” Klein says. “They take their cues from our behavior, and then that becomes ingrained in their behavior.”
Wild animals operate by the day, but domesticated animals set their clocks to us, and they can make the changes they need to make life work for them, he said.
“Nature is pretty smart,” Klein said.
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