Dog disturbing our sleep with barking every night - any training tips

[Flamingpantoufles]

So, our 6.5 year old dog has also been a bit over-zealous when it comes to barking about perceived threats at night (we live in an Urban area so plenty of passers-by, night-time foxes etc) but she's got a lot worse recently and every night she wakes us up with her barking and one of us has to get up (often several times a night) to try and get her to be quiet. For context, we adopted her when she was a few years old so we didn't have her as a puppy and she isn't trained. Appreciate that I probably should have invested in classes or something but it was really hard to find the time at that point.

Up until now we've let her sleep on the landing outside the DC's rooms (we have a tall narrow house) but DH thinks we should now lock her downstairs in the kitchen where we won't hear the barking so much. He tried this last night and she sounded so unhappy, barking away for hours and scratching at the door that eventually DD let her upstairs because she couldn't sleep so clearly she is still audible to DC from the kitchen. Still, DH reckons overall it will be better if we can train her to stay down there because once she's got used to it she won't bark all the time and her intermittent barking will be less of a disturbance than if they were the floor up (i.e. on the DC's landing).

I'm also wanting to keep the barking to a minimum in order not to piss off the rest of the street. She's a small dog and it's a high pitched bark, which through the walls presumably isn't that loud and no-one has said anything yet but I"m still a bit paranoid about it..

Should I:
a) stick to DH's idea and endure a few nights of a very unhappy dog barking through the early hours of the morning in the hope that she'll eventually get the message
b) let her run free at night as before and live with the fact that she's going to wake us
c) invest in training classes - is it even feasible to train a dog not to bark at night?

Any suggestions?

Do you have a radio you can leave on to drown noises out? Even white noise that might help

I don’t think shutting her down in the kitchen will work if she’s getting upset you’d need to build up to that so she’s settled

Also Where is she barking? Is she going downstairs or is she barking up on the landing ?

Training a dog to settle alone doesn't involve shutting them downstairs and ignoring them :( please stop doing this right away.

What is she barking at? Disturbances? Because she's lonely? Can she not sleep in your room or one of the DC's rooms instead of by herself?

I guess she is barking because she is stressed or unsettled by the noise.

So putting her in a room where she will be more anxious will only increase the barking so for your dog this is not the best plan (however I see you DH view of not wanting to be disturbed by the barking)

Does she really only bark at night or does she bark in the day but it is not such an impact on the household?

She barks in the daytime as well both at home and at work but only when there are disturbances i.e. loud voices close by. At night it's obviously more of a problem because she is disturbing the sleep of DH & I plus DC and also our lodger. It doesn't seem to matter where we put her, she still barks. And she generally won't stay in one place, she'll start out in DD's room then move to landing then hear a fox or someone talking on a mobile in the street or another dog barking and go nuts then sit outside our room. We've tried putting her in our room for the night but it's the same pattern. So the benefit of her being downstairs is just that we would hear the barking less (but she wants free run of the house so freaks out if we shut the door).

Much as I understand the concern for her welfare and her not being disturbed, there are 5 humans to consider too and this isn't sustainable.

The white noise is a good idea, I'll try that tonight, and I've also invested in a couple of Kongs, which I'll fill with paste to distract her. She's had a really long walk this afternoon so hoping she'll be v tired.

And she generally won't stay in one place, she'll start out in DD's room then move to landing then hear a fox or someone talking on a mobile in the street or another dog barking and go nuts then sit outside our room. We've tried putting her in our room for the night but it's the same pattern.

Putting her in your room only works if you shut the door :) don't give her the chance to wander around the house causing a disturbance.

The other benefit of her being in your room is you can stop the noise before it gets out of hand. Does she have a "quiet" command at all? Is she crate-trained?

Thanks @fairylightsandwaxmelts - we've tried shutting her in our room with us but she generally shuffles about a lot jumps on and off the bed and/or chair and then scratches to be let out.

I'm afraid she doesn't have a quiet command though a sharp shhh does seem to get her attention temporarily. She's never had a crate as far as I know - we inherited her when she was about two

In a way it is easier if she barks in the daytime too as it is much easier to help change her reaction to noise while you are awake and then this will transfer to the night time to.

Intially what I would do is to mark any reaction to noise in the daytime. I tend to say cool and then give the dog a reward.

It is important to note here that we are not training a behaviour we are changing an emotional response and so no we are not rewarding the barking.

If you do this to as many noises as you can for the next few days you will see your dog turning to you when they hear the noise rather than start to bark. It doesn't matter if the noises are scary or she is getting fun from barking at them the reaction and outcome will be the same.

Over time your dog will associate the word "cool"as to mean nothing to worry about and will be much less likely to start barking at every noise. This will generally bring down her stress levels and she will be less vigilant and more likely to sleep through the noises in the night.

It does take time but not as much as people think.

Oh also as it is a newish behaviour I would get a vet check -pain can wake dogs up or disturb her sleep.

I would want to rule out any other reason for why she is sleeping less deeply than she has been.

Probably nothing but worth checking

Believe me, this is very much like teaching a kid to go back to bed or stay in their room, it will take a while but if you apply the rules (go back to bed and stop barking) all the time, she will get it sooner than if you try to control the barking by trying a lot of different things. As my dog trainer said… it is better not to have a rule at all than having one that is broken or changed at times.

Best of luck, this lockdown time is making even the most mature dogs reversing into puppyhood. Mine is now howling like a coyote when we leave her out of the room even when she never complained before lock down.

Thanks @PollyRoulllson that is really helpful. Will need to get organised with some treats because she does bark a lot and scrambles for the door at a hectic pace if it rings. She's tiny but (from the other side of the door) she sounds pretty scary. Probably should have mentioned this earlier but she grew up with a three bigger dogs who acted as guard dogs and so I guess she has learned from them to go for it when the door bell rang or anyone approached the house.

I've actually already booked a vet appointment (earliest I could get was next Friday) to make sure there's nothing else bothering her

@GrandmasCat

Believe me, this is very much like teaching a kid to go back to bed or stay in their room, it will take a while but if you apply the rules (go back to bed and stop barking) all the time, she will get it sooner than if you try to control the barking by trying a lot of different things. As my dog trainer said… it is better not to have a rule at all than having one that is broken or changed at times.

Best of luck, this lockdown time is making even the most mature dogs reversing into puppyhood. Mine is now howling like a coyote when we leave her out of the room even when she never complained before lock down.

Thanks @GrandmasCat so when you say tell her to go back to bed and stop barking, do you mean each time she barks pick her up and take her to her bed and say sit? I'm happy to give anything a go but at the moment she just doesn't respond to anything like that unless there's food involved. And I fear if I actively give treats to reward her for stopping she'll be delighted and just keep barking throughout the night in order to be rewarded for stopping.

Our dog who we’ve had from puppy suddenly got more anxious about external noise a couple of years ago - he was 4 at the time. No obvious trigger but suddenly he was barking loads in the night. We gated the landing outside my room - I sleep with the door open so he can come and go. Works fine and he rarely barks now.

My theory fwiw is they feel responsible for guarding the house and giving them a limit decreases the burden a bit. We have a 2nd dog who’s now a year old and although he’s a noisy git lots of the time, the night time “guard barking” is very much the province of the older dog. The young one is vigilant and watches with interest but leaves the guarding to the older one

@PollyRoulllsons advice is spot on!
Our neighbours dog barks all the time and was setting our pup off
We did as per her advice and now she hears a noise a bark etc she looks to us or ignores
Doesn’t take long

I would def try white noise too and confine her to somewhere so she can settle even if she has to stay on the landing or something

Thanks @glassofbubbles25 I'll start the barking training tomorrow (well this evening if anyone sets her off). None of our landings are closed off so she'd have to be in a room, or in the kitchen as we'd originally planned to do but she really hated that. So, really not sure what to do tonight that won't give mixed messages!

DDog is on her crate in our room. I now only got disturbed when she's very scared (fireworks, bad storms, high pitched beeps).

It took 3 nights to train her she wasn't allowed on the bed and only comes out of crate very rarely.

How did you train her to sleep in the crate? I'm wondering if 6.5 is a bit old to train for a crate?

I used to complain about our dog (young Jack Russell) barking. Until the night last year when she went ape shit and DD rescued a young woman who was being raped and was screaming.
Dog is a Jack, which are notoriously gobby. She sleeps with DD and her partner, and seems to have learned the difference between ambient noise (Cars going past, passing people ect) and people approaching the house or, is a in the case above, people in distress.

She still barks at birds, mind you, even when they are high up in the sky. She also chases them.

Oh, and she barks at dogs on the television. Like I said, she's gobby.

Is she getting enough exercise maybe tire her out before bed

I wondered that too but she's had two short walks and one long one today and i'll walk her around the block before bed. I honestly don't think I'd have time for any more than that on a regular basis.

I would try white noise too near the sources of potential noise and see if that’s enough to stop her?
Or even leave a radio on downstairs low to muffle sounds. Depending on your landing set up you might be able to get a stair gate 2nd hand to help confine her.

We have crate trained but from a puppy it’s not something you can just do so would take a while and if the barking at night is new id be tempted to try white noise/ radio etc first

Ah she came crate trained but used to live with other dogs.

She was fine in her crate at night until lockdown then I think the teens going down into the kitchen meant she finally realised we were home

She knew the command "on your bed" which actually means go and lay down elsewhere and behave, she has several dog beds scattered around the house.

So when she moved into our room every time she got on the bed I told her "on your bed" and dumped her on the floor and she learnt pretty quick she was allowed on my bed at night.

With her crate we cover her over but the door isn't locked.

She's an anxious girl and after the summer when the barking and crying started she was anxious about her crate for a while.

Some dogs are aloof and other dogs are quite needy for their humans ours certainly is!

Exactly the same here except she doesn't bark at all during the day. She will also respond to our command not to bark but when she starts, it's hard to srop it.

It on started a couple of months ago. She is 2. In our case, it is clearly cats and foxes coming into our garden close to the French window. I don't think it's as much the noise as the smell. She is indeed guarding as age is not reacting to them on walks.

I like the idea of the radio for the sound, not sure what we can do with the smell though! I'm going to take her with me in bed for a couple of days to see if it breaks the cycle although I sleep with the window open but the other side of the garden.

She is such a good dog in every way but clearly gets anxious at night.

invest in training

This.

Part of that training will be working out why she is barking at night so you can address the issue.

As PPs posters have pointed out banishing to further away will only make it worse

It's really not fair on a dog to not do the training. In a pack, or even just a family of dogs, there would be training to ensure they behave, from the mother and any older dogs. It's important that you replicate that so they fit into your family.

It's not the dogs fault, it needs to be trained. Not very different to human children.