Daylight Savings Time Ends This Weekend

Looking for ways to help your pet adjust to the end of daylight savings time?  If you are like me and hope to sleep during your extra hour, these tips from Richmond SPCA expert may help.  Do you have any tips you like to use?

Daylight Savings Time: Helping your pet fall back in sync with the time change

Last night most of the US set back our clocks an hour with hopes of picking up an extra hour of sleep with Daylight Savings Time, but many of us with pets found that our companions' internal clocks are not as easily reset. Last fall, I sought help from our animal behavior specialist, Marie Tripton, when Frisco, my adopted kitty, was regularly rising much earlier than I was. I expect her advice to me can be helpful to others, particularly after the time change. 

Q: I could use some advice to help find the “snooze” button on my feline alarm clock. Or even better, I’d like to figure out how to set him for a later wake up call. Lately he begins the wake-up routine around 5 a.m. It used to mean standing on my chest and purring, which was tolerable because he’d eventually settle down beside me and rest for awhile.

Lately, however, he has begun loud meowing, running sprints through my bedroom or up and down the hallway, and scratching of doors to get my attention. If I try shutting him out of the room, he’s fairly persistent about scratching the door, which I have to get up to stop.

A: My recommendation for the early riser solution would depend on what it appears he wants when he wakes up at 5 a.m. Does he appear to want food, or does he want to play, or does he just want you to get up. If he seems to want to get up early to eat, look into purchasing a time-regulated feeder like this one. These don’t work too well with wet food, and you may need to secure it to a table or floor if he’s a particularly strong cat. Some strong cats/dogs have been known to knock the feeder around if they smell food in it.

If he wants to get up to play, look into any of the automated toys and place one near your bed. Roll over and turn it on if he tries to wake you up. Examples:

• Mouse in the House 
• Undercover Mouse 
• Fling-ama-String 

Or simply tip over a small bucket of ping pong balls. This of course assumes you have carpeting, or you might be waking up due to the noise. ;)

I’m betting once the days get shorter he’ll be sleeping longer. You might also want to make sure he gets a good long play session before he goes to bed at night.

Tabitha Frizzell Hanes is the community relations manager for the Richmond SPCA.