Madeline Holcomb, CNN
(CNN) — Every night at exactly 11pm, my dog corrals me into my bedroom and by 7am he's nuzzling my face and getting ready for the day. This may become a problem during daylight savings time.
When the clocks move forward an hour on March 10th, Milo and I know we have to adjust our routines, and he doesn't.
And that can be a bigger problem than you think. Although it's just a one-hour difference, the switch to daylight saving time can have a big impact on our circadian rhythms, sleep expert Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta said 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 a little easier for your cat or dog, and by extension yourself.
Don't set your cat's schedule
The transition to daylight saving time is not a problem for cats at all. That's because certified cat behavior experts Linda Hall and Rita Reimers of the Cat Behavior Alliance recommend not putting Fluffy on your schedule in the first place.
Because domestic cats rely on humans to feed them, Hall says, a cat that typically eats at 7 a.m. will become very anxious when its food bowl is empty at 7:05 a.m.
Instead, Hall and Reimers recommend using behavioral routines or phrases that indicate food is on the way. And make sure feeding isn't the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning. Otherwise, Reimers added, your feline friend will be pestering you every time you wake up at night.
Hall always plays with the cats for a few minutes before feeding them. Now the cats know not to panic for food even if playtime hasn't come yet. Mr. Reimers asks the cats, “Do you want something to eat?” This phrase means you can get excited about breakfast.
In the wild, cats typically hunt at dusk and dawn, so they can be most active at those times. If you don't want to be woken up by cats playing at dawn, 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 a little bit
Dr. Jerry Klein has two dogs with his brother and sister. One is easy-going and the other is a dog-like alarm clock.
“Literally at 6:25 in the morning… Zane is ready to go,” said Klein, chief veterinary officer for the American Kennel Club.
How well a dog adheres to a morning routine will depend on their personality, but if they're a hunting or sporting dog, they may be a little more up and ready to go, Klein says.
“They hunt early in the morning,” he added. “In nature, dogs hunt in the morning, so dogs in packs are usually more active in the early morning.”
You might not feel like searching for your food bowl in the kitchen an hour early in the morning. If so, you can start making adjustments for your dog now.
“The most important thing is to stick to a schedule and be pretty consistent with it,” Klein said.
You can then move the schedule forward or backward by 15 minutes each day to adjust when your dog does all of his favorite activities, like eating, going out, going for walks, and even when he's done drinking at night. , he added.
Similar to the gradual transition that experts recommend for children, changing your furry friend a few minutes at a time over a few days is more doable than suddenly changing over an hour. .
Please be patient for the sake of the puppy.
If you have a young dog, especially one who is working on house training, it's important to be a little more thoughtful and patient when changing times.
“They don't have the patience of older dogs, so you have to be more sensitive to their cues,” Klein says.
For successful puppy training, adjust the timing of your last outing of the day and how late your pet sleeps so your dog doesn't hold his bladder for more than an hour. , He said.
That's because, unlike older dogs, puppies often can't wait that long, Klein said.
trust your pet
Even if you don't deal with the time change quickly enough and the animal ends up pecking your face an hour before you want it to, it should resolve itself within a few days, Klein says.
“The good news is that most pets, primarily dogs, adapt pretty well,” Klein says. “They take cues from our actions and incorporate them into their actions.”
Wild animals are driven by the sun, he said, but domestic animals can synchronize their clocks with us and make the changes necessary to make their lives work.
“Nature is very smart,” Klein says.
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