Barking at bedtime!

[SFHJ]

Our dog just coming up to a year old has always slept in her crate overnight. For about two weeks now whenever we put her to bed she just barks and barks and barks. Luckily we are a detached house, and she doesn’t wake the kids up.
She is a small 6kg cavapoo in an xl cage and has space to move around etc.
She has gone to bed and slept soundly since her second night home!
She got spayed over a month ago and was fine going to bed until about two weeks or so ago.
I’ve tried leaving her crate open so she has access to the kitchen but she gets hyper, tried a light on, a light off, a cuddly toy, she gets a gravy bone at bedtime so that keeps her quiet the whole of 2mins!
I can’t have her anywhere else as the youngest whose 3 goes wondering when she wakes up but never goes to the kitchen.

Any suggestions! I’m exhausted!

Is the crate too big?

Its shouldn't be huge.

But I would guess that something has unsettled her in the night. Can you move her crate?

If you can and it doesn't help or if you cant, I would go back to basics and start as though you were crate training all over again.

Sounds like she needs more exercise through the day, caverpoos have a ridiculous amount of energy. Is she sleeping much in the evening before you go to bed?

She will happily go in her crate throughout the day and been in this once since 18 weeks old, so not sure that it’s the size.
It could tie in with school holidays?
She doesn’t sleep in the evenings before we put her to bed. She is fine when she is left daytime doesn’t make a fuss etc, has always been left at least an hour a day sometimes several times a day so used to being left!

Is she getting enough exercise?

@SFHJ

She will happily go in her crate throughout the day and been in this once since 18 weeks old, so not sure that it’s the size. It could tie in with school holidays? She doesn’t sleep in the evenings before we put her to bed. She is fine when she is left daytime doesn’t make a fuss etc, has always been left at least an hour a day sometimes several times a day so used to being left!

They can act very different at night with crate than they do at night.

For example, if she was in her crate at might and heard a noise outside she may have felt trapped and unsafe, so now doesn't like it at night. But still happy in the day.

As pp said it may also be that she needs more exercise or more brain games, during the day.

Do you have a cover on the crate? Have you tried playing music on low (white noise or wave music)

star pup has recently gone through something like this we have an adaptil plug in in the bed room and he has a herbal calming pill with his tea and its stopped the anxiety he still wakes up but settles himself back down fairly quick at least until the arsehole cat comes home yelling about his adventures, but that wakes us all up anyway lol

imovethestarsforno1 could you let me know what brand herbal tea, I'm having similar issues with dog anxiety

Assuming all is well health-wise -

Could be related to her spaying, if you had to reduce her exercise drastically for a bit while she recovered. Maybe she started getting antsy at night time, and now that's formed a habit of associating night time with restlessness? Or something spooked her one night, and now she has that association? If so, you could try breaking the association by changing something about her night time routine. Licki mat instead of gravy bone. Play a radio. Move her bed. Something like this.

Random thought, but my dog always used to bark at night when being put in his pen. We shifted his afternoon walk to later in the day (5pm, 6pm, 7pm - along these lines), and he no longer barks when being put to bed. He just crashes out. We also avoid boisterous play (with squeaky balls, and such) in the evening, as he tends to be more restless at night time if he's been running around like that.

An Adaptil plug and dorwest valerian tablets worked wonders with our rescue dog.

Do you walk her every day?

Hi, just thought I would update.
She gets walked etc fully exercised, dog Walker days where we are working, dad pops in to see her too, so never alone too long etc. Very happy little thing.
We noticed she was starting to do this on a monthly cycle, which seems to coincide with my monthly cycle, usually when I’m curled up in bed with a hot water bottle on night 1-2 of my cycle! Not quite sure what I can do regarding this. But thought it was an interesting update.
We don’t get as flustered by it now as we know it’s not a complete change in behaviour where it happens every night.