No idea what to do!

[scrivette]

I have had my Bassett Hound for 4 years, he is 11 now.

The last few months he has been getting hard work during the evenings, from about 5pm he pretty much constantly barks.

It doesn't matter if he has been walked in the evening or not, been fed or not, he barks at DH or I, or even the children sometimes and now I am starting to be concerned as a couple of times he has gone up to the toddler and barked right in his face.

He doesn't appear to be aggressive with it, but we can't work out why and stroking him doesn't work and ignoring him makes him worse! The only thing that stops him is when we go to bed (or pretend to go)

I really am struggling with it, I don't want to rehome him as I think he would pine but I am not sure I can cope with him being like this and I just don't know what to do.

Have you seen a vet?

No, do you think it's something they could help with? (I tend to think of vets for illness rather than behaviour).

Having a had a quick Google as my 11yr old dog is really unsettled suddenly in the evenings barking could be a sign that your ddog is going deaf. A vets visit maybe a good idea.

Any sudden change in in behaviour with no clear trigger is worth a vet check just to make sure there's no physical cause.

If there's nothing medically wrong then the next step would be a decent behaviourist to try and help sort the problem.

Actually hearing would make sense as he isn't reacting as quickly when we get home during the day, I just thought it was because he was sleeping.

I will book an appointment with the vet on the first instance then, thank you all.