Daylight Saving Time and Pets: How to Ease the Time Change

Last updated: October 2026

Every fall you gain an hour of sleep on paper, and then a dog stands by the bed at what your phone calls 5:45 a.m., or a cat taps your face because breakfast is “late.” The good news is that this is one of the easiest pet problems to plan for. Below is what the research says, a day-by-day plan for feeding, walks and medication, and how to keep darker evening walks safe.

Does the time change affect pets?

It can, though usually less than owners expect. In the first study to measure it, published in PLOS One in 2025, University of Toronto researchers fitted activity trackers to 25 sled dogs and 29 pet dogs in Ontario, Canada, plus the pet dogs’ caregivers, through the November 2021 fall-back shift.

The sled dogs lived on a strict schedule tied to their handlers’ arrival. On the Sunday of the switch, they were more active than usual before their people showed up, but they were back to normal within two days.

The pet dogs showed no change in morning activity at all, and did not follow sunrise. One detail stood out, though. Age had a significant influence, and older pet dogs were less active on the first morning after the shift.

What drives a dog’s wake-up time, then? Mostly us. Dogs have a circadian rhythm, an internal 24-hour clock, but as the American Kennel Club points out, they are creatures of habit whose days are built around our meals, walks and bedtime. When our routine jumps an hour, theirs does too.

“Dogs are very, very entrained to humans. It’s a testament to how well our patterns are synced.”

Lavania Nagendran, study co-author and PhD candidate, University of Toronto, in National Geographic

Dogs also notice how much time has passed. In a Swedish study, 12 dogs left home alone for 2 or 4 hours greeted their owners far more intensely than after 30 minutes, which the researchers took as evidence that dogs are affected by the length of time. A dog may not read a clock, but it knows when dinner is late.

How do you adjust a pet feeding schedule for daylight saving time?

Move everything later in small steps before the change, so that when the clocks fall back, your pet is already on the new schedule. The AKC recommends gradually adjusting eating, walking and bedtime in the week before the time change. Seattle Humane’s animal training manager, Farrah Branson, told the Seattle Times she typically advises 15-minute steps in the days leading up to it.

Here is the plan for a pet who normally eats at 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Walks and bathroom breaks slide along with meals.

Missed the window? You can do the same thing in reverse after the change. Branson notes that the 15-minute steps work in the days after a switch, too. On Sunday, feed at 6:00 a.m. new time, which feels like 7:00 to your pet, then move 15 minutes later each day until you reach 7:00 a.m. by Thursday.

Longer term, a little flexibility helps. The PLOS One authors concluded that flexible routines and gradual changes help dogs adjust to abrupt schedule changes.

Do dogs and cats react differently to the time change?

Often, yes. Dogs tend to read our cues, while many cats run their own schedule and expect us to follow it.

Branson put it this way in the Seattle Times: dogs are “incredibly tuned into what their humans are up to.” They respond to keys jingling, alarm clocks and the sound of food hitting a bowl, which is why they usually settle in quickly. Cats, she said, “are a bit more linked to circadian rhythm and tend to be a little bit more ritualized and regimented in their times of waking up and eating foods.” With cats, the time change “definitely seems to be more of an issue.”

Cats are also crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk, as Dr. Pamela Perry, a behavior resident at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, explained in Cornell’s Catwatch newsletter. When the clock falls back, dawn arrives an hour earlier by the clock, and so does your cat’s breakfast demand.

Signs your pet is still on old time include waiting at the bowl an hour early, pacing by the door and waking you before the alarm. The AKC adds that some dogs get anxious or have a nervous stomach or potty accidents. If symptoms last more than a few days, or your pet stops eating, call your vet rather than blaming the clock.

What does a time change feel like to your dog?

Imagine your whole day is built around a handful of moments. The first stir in the bedroom. The rattle of the food scoop. The leash coming off the hook. The car pulling into the driveway at the end of the day. You do not know what a clock is, but you know the rhythm of those moments the way you know the smell of your own bed.

For most of the year, that rhythm holds. Your person gets up, you go outside, breakfast lands in the bowl, and the light coming through the window looks the way it always looks at that point in the morning. Your body has learned to expect each step. Your stomach starts to growl a little before the scoop rattles. Your bladder knows when the door usually opens.

Then, one Sunday in November, everything slides. Your body says it is time to go out, but the house is quiet. Your person is still in bed, enjoying the extra hour the clock gave them. You wait. You shift your weight. Maybe you sigh loudly by the bedroom door, or nudge a hand that is hanging off the mattress. From your side of things, nothing about your needs has changed. Your person is simply late.

Later, the day gets strange in the other direction. The evening walk now happens in the dark. The street looks different, sounds carry differently, and the car that used to pull in while it was still light now arrives with its headlights on. Dinner, which used to come when the sun was setting, comes after the sky has gone fully black. None of this is a crisis, but it is a lot of small surprises at once for an animal who finds comfort in predictability.

Researchers have only started to measure this. The Toronto team found that pet dogs largely stuck to their usual morning patterns, while working sled dogs on a fixed handler schedule were restless the first morning and settled within a day or two. Older dogs were less active on that first morning. In other words, how a dog experiences the change depends on how rigid its routine is, how old it is and, most of all, what its people do.

That is the part you control. If you nudge the routine later over a few days, your dog never feels the jolt. If you cannot, you can still soften it. Get up at the old time on Sunday, even if you go back to bed afterward. Give the first bathroom break when your dog’s body expects it. Then let meals drift toward the new schedule a little at a time.

It also helps to keep the parts of the day that do not depend on the clock. The same greeting when you come home. The same toy after dinner. The same spot on the couch for the evening wind-down. These cues tell your dog the world is still in order, even if the light outside is different.

And remember that a dog asking for something early is not being difficult. It is doing exactly what it has learned to do, which is to keep time with you. A few patient days are all most dogs need to catch up.

What should you do if your pet takes insulin or timed medication?

Talk to your veterinarian before the weekend, and do not change a dose on your own. That said, the fall change is the gentler of the two for diabetic pets, because the gap between doses gets longer, not shorter.

Animal Diabetes Australia, a veterinary diabetes resource, says there is no requirement to miss an insulin injection at the end of daylight saving time, and injections can continue at the usual times. One interval on Sunday simply stretches to about 13 hours. The spring change is different, and the same group says skipping one injection is often safest then, so ask your vet well ahead of March.

For cats specifically, the Cornell Feline Health Center notes that insulin is given approximately every 12 hours, and that “varying injection times by 1-2 hours when needed will not adversely affect a cats’ treatment.” That guidance is for cats. For a diabetic dog, ask your vet what window is safe.

If your vet prefers a gradual shift, Asheville Holistic Veterinary Hospital suggests moving feeding times slowly over a couple of weeks, since insulin is usually tied to meals. The practice adds that timing is less critical for most heart, thyroid or pain medicines, where an 11- or 13-hour interval on the day of the change is not a problem.

Why do senior pets and pets with cognitive dysfunction struggle more?

Older animals often have a harder time with any change in routine, and the time change is no exception. In the Toronto study, older pet dogs were less active on the first morning after the shift. Study co-author Lavania Nagendran told National Geographic that owners of older dogs should “take even more care in implementing more gradual changes to their routine.”

Some seniors also have cognitive dysfunction, a dementia-like condition whose hallmark signs include disturbed sleep. It is not rare. In the Dog Aging Project’s study of more than 15,000 dogs, the odds of cognitive dysfunction rose 52 percent with each additional year of age. In cats, research summarized by Danièlle Gunn-Moore of the University of Edinburgh found that about 28 percent of cats aged 11 to 14 develop at least one age-related behavior problem, rising to more than 50 percent of cats 15 and older. Crying out loudly at night is one of the most common.

For these pets, take the transition slowly:

• Use 10-minute steps instead of 15, and start a week early.
• Add a nightlight near water, litter boxes and beds.
• Keep furniture, bowls and beds where they are.
• Tell your vet about new night waking or vocalizing, since pain and thyroid disease can look similar.

Confused seniors may also wander, so see our guide to senior pet care and ID tags, and if your dog suddenly seems to nap all day, our guide to dog sleep explains what is normal.

How do you keep darker evening walks safe after the time change?

The biggest change after November 1 is that your after-work walk suddenly happens in the dark. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 76 percent of pedestrian deaths in 2024 happened in the dark, and in the fall months, 29 percent happened between 6 and 8:59 p.m., right when many of us walk our dogs.

• Wear reflective clothing or carry a flashlight, as NHTSA advises for anyone walking at night.
• Put a reflective or LED collar on your dog, too. See our best LED dog collars.
• Walk facing traffic when there is no sidewalk, and keep your phone in your pocket.
• Stick to familiar, well-lit routes for the first couple of weeks.

Our full guide to walking your dog in the dark has more.

Dark is also when a dog that slips its collar is hardest to find, so make sure its ID tag shows your current number and is firmly attached. A smart tag adds a profile a neighbor can open with a tap to call you. Before the time change, check that profile in Lohji, the companion app for Shiloh’s House tags, and update photos and contacts. Lohji is free to download on the App Store and Google Play.

How do you stop your cat waking you up an hour early?

Expect your cat at the old breakfast time for a few days, and do not turn that into a habit. Cornell’s Dr. Perry warned that “many cats learn that when they wake their owners during the night, they get attention and/or food, which makes them more likely to wake their owners again.” If you get up and feed a cat at 5:30 a.m., you have just taught it that 5:30 a.m. works.

Instead, try these steps from Cornell and the Richmond SPCA:

• Shift the cat’s meals 15 minutes later each day before November 1, using the table above.
• Hold a lively play session with a wand toy in the evening, then offer a small snack from the cat’s daily portion.
• Ignore early wake-up calls calmly. No food, no talking, no petting.
• Leave a gap between when you get up and when breakfast is served, so waking you is not the same as getting fed.

If your cat already races around the house at 3 a.m., our post on cat zoomies and midnight meowing has more ideas.

Do automatic feeders adjust for daylight saving time?

Some do and some do not, so check yours. Wi-Fi feeders that sync to your phone usually change their clock automatically overnight. That sounds helpful, but it means the feeder will drop breakfast at 7:00 a.m. new time on Sunday, which is an hour later than your cat’s body expects. Older or simpler feeders with a built-in clock may not change at all, so they will keep running on daylight time until you reset them.

Either way, let the feeder do the gradual shift, moving each meal 15 minutes later per day from October 28. The Richmond SPCA recommends setting a timed feeder for 15 to 30 minutes before your cat usually wakes you, so the cat learns to watch the machine instead of you, then easing the time later if you want a later breakfast.

Comparing feeders? Our review of the best automatic pet feeders covers schedules, portion control and which models handle multiple meals.

Frequently asked questions