early starts

Is the dog allowed to have his basket in the bedroom at night? Mine has a bean bag upstairs and she slopes off to bed at night whether I'm going or not. I don't hear a peep out of her all night. She isn't allowed on the bed or furniture. She sleeps in her basket downstairs in the daytime.

If the dog is 3 and doesn't have separation anxiety, doesn't howl when the family go out in the daytime, perhaps something as simple as a basket upstairs will solve the problem?

He sounds lovely (except when howling I expect , Bichon are adorable, beautiful dogs. He could just be cold as the weather has got very chilly in these parts recently. I am afraid our dog - a hefty lurcber who loves being chased around the local field by her bichon pal - sleeps in our room but the rule is she has her own bed and stays on it.

Our younger Jack Russell sleeps in our room because they suddenly started rampaging around the kitchen at 5am. They thought it was fun.....we didn't!! She has her own basket but sneaks up on the bottom of our bed at some point during the night. She doesn't wake us but she's always there in the morning.

Her mum is happy to have the basket in the kitchen all to herself so peace reigns once again

I wonder if it might be caterwauling cats? Cold? Or a cautionary tale - Many years ago our lab started agitating in the middle of the night from the kitchen where she slept. Not long after we noticed a smell of gas and there a leak from our refitted cooker.None of us had noticed during the day.

A close friend and dog trainer commented to me that dogs will occasionally behave like dogs, just to remind us that's what they are. Her comment followed an occasion where my gentle big dog had suddenly rolled a big lab over, and stood growling at it - for no reason any human person could identify.
We had the 4 or 5 am barking from our young dog, but this has now gone to 7am since it got dark thankfully. Mine sleep downstairs, but almost everyone else I know lets their dogs have a basket upstairs to avoid being disturbed at night.
I don't want to go that route - when we were woken too early, I'd go down, reassure the dog and say bed time, close the door and remove myself. It took a few days, but it did pay off. Is the dog well otherwise? The only time it's happened recently is when our dog had an upset stomach and needed to go out.

Is it possible that there are mice in the house and the dog can hear them scratching around?

He's lonely

In which case can I refer you to "Hound heaven" on the "Picture" thread
PS LizG - "Rule" and "lurcher" in the same sentence ? ? ?

I just looked at Hound Heaven - what joy! If the bichon is indeed lonely, a companion dog may help. Then again, it may not. One of my friends fitted a camera to film her dogs when she's out, just to reassure herself they were (all 5 of them) ok and they were. I wonder if your daughter could do something like this bichonmad, so she can watch the film and see what happens in the build up to the barking.