Dog suddenly barking at night, help!!

[TheSmallestOneWasMadeline]

My 2 year old spaniel has suddenly decided its okay to bark and wake the entire house up in the middle of the night. I'm assuming it's to do with noises he hears outside the house but how the hell do I stop it??

We have neighbors who work odd hours so cars drive down the road through the night but I rarely ever hear them until the dog starts up.

Its honestly driving me crazy and I have a 14 month old who keeps being woken up and gets upset.

Any ideas?

Wildlife your garden, perhaps? A fox? A hedgehog getting ready to hibernate? Rats?

Is there a different room he could sleep in? When one of my dogs started this I moved him to sleep in different room downstairs and that seemed to solve the problem. I recently tried to move him back into the dining room (where I would prefer he slept) and he was moaning all night again.

Try to move him away from noises, if not you might need to put him in with you.
Changes in behaviour might need a vet visit if you can’t solve it.

I have to shut my dog out of the two back rooms at night otherwise he spends the whole time peering out of the windows and poking his head out of the cat flap on the look out for foxes!

I have the same but with a younger dog. I’ve tried everything I can think off. Vet check, moved rooms, lights on lights off, white music, tried him in our room. So currently sleeping on the sofa with him happily on the floor in the living room. He doesn’t acknowledge my existence other than barking if he realises I’m not there. I’m going to a behaviouralist as a last resort.

Cover all the windows so he can't see out, and use a radio or white noise machine to block out sounds. Also make sure he's not cold - does he have blankets?

The ridiculous thing is that he actually can't see out, the doors are glazed and we have blinds and curtains on the windows. But I think car headlights still get through a bit and obviously the noise.

He has the entire kitchen, plus hallway and stairs (he likes to sleep on the bottom step) and a bed in our room. The lounge and other bedroom doors are all closed but if we close our door or the kitchen he scratches and whines so we just let him have the run.

I will try the white noise though!!

He does have blankets and will curl himself up under our duvet sometimes too. But even when he is in with us if he hears a noise he is suddenly on high alert.

It's odd because its only a recent thing, hes been fine for 2 years!

When he barks, you all react and come and give him attention.

He is learning to repeat the behaviour because of this. We learned this the hard way with our chihuahua.

You could try crating him upstairs in your room at bed time for a week or 2 so he can see you asleep and knows it is time to sleep but when he barks once, he gets told sternly 'no' or 'bad' (aka shut the hell up). This may teach him that the pack react negatively to his 'alerting' system rather than getting him extra attention?

I was just about to post the same thing as you OP. We’ve got two dogs- one is 10
and is starting to get a bit anxious at night and has a little bark before she settles. The other is a anxious Romanian rescue around 4 years. I think there’s an increase in wildlife around and that’s what he can hear in the garden. Bus is definitely not an anxious bark but an excited one. We’ve had a stressful couple of weeks with workmen and illness and I think he’s a bit trigger stacked so that’s definitely not helping! The nighttime barking has been going on for the same time that we’ve been ill and had workmen here so I think he’s been affected by that