Evening barking support please

[millypeggyandpandora]

Hi ladies
My one year old male, castrated chihuahua is quite quiet in the day time. We are with him and our two other dogs most of the time as we are retired. He gets two walks a day, which he reluctantly goes on, as he likes sniffing round the garden or snoozing more!
However at around 6 pm he changes into a devil! Barking in the faces of the other dogs, barking at me for attention etc. I have tried, unsuccessfully, giving him time out with a chew in his favourite bed, praising him when he is good, really long walks to tire him out... if any body can offer advice I would really appreciate it.
xxx

Witching hour our 14month is the same

Ours was the same as a pup. We found doing something that worked her brain just before the time it would usually begin helped. Try hiding some treats around the house/garden or doing a bit of training.

if all else fails, completely ignore the barking as any reaction from you is reinforcing. I used to get up and busy myself with something in another room. They are quite black and white and generally do things for a reason. If barking suddenly becomes boring and nobody reacts they do get the message that it’s no longer working. We found it does get worse before it gets better though as they try harder to get a response!

I thought they would have grown out of it by 12 months old! Perhaps at 24 !😱

Thanks, that makes sense, he has upped the barking lately when ignore him. We will try leaving the room as another option when he starts being attention seeking.
Trouble is he also barks in the other 2 dogs faces in order to get a reaction out of them!

Try putting him on a lead and tethering him to you

I havent thought of tethering him to me, I presume after he gets the message that barking is not ok, I can start taking him off the lead?

Ideally! The way tethering works is it means they can't run around, bark and annoy other people/dogs. You don't have to keep getting up because they've pinched a sock/the remote/barked at the window etc

As they can't run around and be silly, they should learn to just settle down and sleep/relax. We started by using the tether every evening automatically, then we just used it when he barked/got the zoomies, and eventually we didn't need to use it at all as he'd learned that evenings = calm time.

Good luck!

We call it the witching hour too. My pup is five months old and his witching hour is from 7-8.00 pm, in fact he’s just conked out on my lap after wearing himself out for the last hour.

For some reason chewing doesn’t seem to work for him (although it can be calming for some dogs and does at other times) but a lickimat does. He will stop to thoroughly lick it and that brings down his adrenaline, so he’s not as bonkers afterwards. You can make them up in advance and freeze them so it’s ready to go as soon as he flips his loopy switch or give him chance to burn off some energy first (mine likes to chase a football in the garden for 10 minutes or so) then give him the mat after the initial burst.