Dog seriously freaked me out last night

[HelgatheHairy]

We live in a fairly rural location. Fields all around the house so at night, outside of the light of the outside light, there's just darkness (this is important)

Put puppy (8month Golden) to bed at around 12.30 (he'd been asleep on the bed with us till then but he gets moved to the kitchen for proper bedtime)

At 2.30am he starts barking and barking and they were proper growly barks. He's NEVER done this before, I got up after a little while (because he wasn't stopping) to check on him and DH said I should do a lap of the house outside to make sure everything was ok!! Needless to say that didn't happen.

He seemed fine when I got up and was quite all night after that but it did freak me out a bit wondering if there was someone around.

[foolonthehill]

fox, badger, owl, dream......? Probably all more likely than person..but without psychic powers couldn't really say!

[BillyBollyBrandy]

Our dog hated hedgehogs. She would go proper nuts, only for us to find a helpless hedgehog half way down a fairly long garden. And she would be indoors behind double glazing!

[HelgatheHairy]

Funny how my mind instantly jumped to the worst possibility - I never even considered things like foxes etc.

[SpicyPear]

The only time SpicyPup has gone properly crazy like that at night it was a fox. Then the fox started screaming and it went on for ages, this awful to and fro of screeching and growly barking, at about 3am. We are in a terrace so I'm sure we were extremely popular with the neighbours that night There was just no distracting him.

[Floralnomad]

Did your DH not think he should do the lap of the outside of the house!

[moosemama]

Our old Wheaten did a similar thing at about the same age, in fact she did it on several nights and as there had been a lot of burglaries locally I was starting to get really worried.

Turned out she had taken exception to the shape of the cd rack in the dark!

To be fair it was one of those fair trade ones that is supposed to look like a cat/leopard/tiger thing, so it did in fact have an animal shaped head. Personally I always hated the thing and she gave me a good excuse to get rid of it - although not before we'd got her over her fear of it.

We only worked it out because we got downstairs one night before she had retreated to her bed growling and barking and she was standing there, fixed, staring and growling at it with her hackles up. It's the only time in her whole life she ever growled.

We now have a big daft soppy lurcher and he will bark and growl if there is a fox in the garden - doesn't stop him enjoying a good roll in what they leave behind though.

[littlewhitebag]

My golden pup did that one night and it turns out a badger had been rooting through a planter outside the window where her crate was. It's foot prints could be seen clearly in the spilled soil.

[HoneyDragon]

Ours does this a lot and next doors dog. We get a lot of foxes and cats using the fences to get around.

[aliasjoey]

and if you go to the trouble of putting the oven gloves on and moving the hedgehog to the front garden, the STUPID animal immediately comes trotting round again (and they can move fast)

I mean, I love hedgehogs, they're great wildlife animals but they drive the dog nuts. (its alive! its stopped moving! its ball-shaped! is it alive? try picking it up, ouch, bark at it instead! its in MY territory, must warn owners about intrusion! etc...)

[bubble2bubble]

Our girls do this occasionally and it's usually either a strange cat or a fox - we are rural as well. Usually we find evidence of bin scavenging the next day
They have a completely different kind of bark if a person is near the house, and we now know straightaway if this happens

[RedwingWinter]

I'm rural too and it usuall means wildlife outside. On a clear night when the owl is hooting away, Dog2 used to go bezerk. I had to sit up for a while one night and teach him that the owl was okay (hoot=treat before he barked). I haven't heard the owl in a while so we might have to do this again next time it comes back.

[HelgatheHairy]

Loving the stories!

To be fair DH was proper dozy as we'd been asleep so I don't think he thought it through when he said about doing a lap of the house!

moose your story just reminded me we got a new food stand for him yesterday, it might have been that he was barking at. Will put it away tonight.

[twojues]

Foxes are a real pain at night. My toller goes mad if he hears them, the lab just ignores them.

They sleep in the dining room on their beds with the door open, so he would come charging out and bark in the hall and wake me up. I now put the radio on in the dining room. He doesn't hear the foxes, so doesn't bark!!

[moosemama]

Worth a try Helga - food stands can be verrry scary in the dark y'know!

[PersonalClown]

We have a family of foxes living in the little wooded area next to my house.
My dumb Staffy talks to them when they start 'barking' at night!

[foolonthehill]

Oh...these stories reminded me that foolishdog cannot cope with helium balloons once they fall halfway down the air space...ceiling ok, floor ok but not in between...

[HelgatheHairy]

I know there have been foxes in the field right next to the house (dog has rolled in the evidence enough of times!) so could have been that as well.

He went bonkers at a barrel that washed up on the beach a few days ago, would not walk past it no matter what I tried. The next day he walked past it like it wasn't there!

[SouthernPolish]

We get that sometimes and I always put it down to cats or foxes. My dog hates sleeping in a completely dark room, so we put a dimmer switch on in the living room. I have also been known to leave the TV on occasionally at low volume, in extreme cases. Spongebob works best!