Help - calling all dog owners

[MissJuly10]

Any tips for stopping my dog from barking at night? I have 3 staffies and they are all kept in my kitchen/dining room at night normally with the door shut as they aren't allowed on the sofas. One of my dogs has randomly started barking at all hours of the night, usually between 1-4am and she had DH up 4 times last night, shouting for her to shut up. I've had notes from next door posted through my door and I'm at a loss cos I don't know what they expect me to do. Being hard of hearing means I don't hear her barking anyway, DH ends up getting up with her. We tried putting a babygate up instead of closing the door but she still barks. DH doesn't like the idea of a crate and doesn't want to stress her or cause her to bark even more cos of it so I'm kind of at a loss....any ideas would be great as we obviously can't keep getting up and shouting at her as DH works during the day so needs his sleep. X


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[SeonaidMac]

I wouldn't say that crating her would stop the problem anyway hun. Is she able to see outside at night? it could be that she's seeing things moving. One of mine has started barking and it's because of where he sleeps he can see the foxes in the garden at night.. x
Sorry i can't be of more help, some of mine do randomly bark in the middle of the night but it's usually because they've sensed something.. they have much more heightened senses than we do xx

 

[SeonaidMac]

Also sometimes shouting at them just makes it worse, dogs feed off our energies so if we're frustrated then they will be and if we're stressed or worried they will mirror our energies... xx

 

[lisey27]

I have heard this too that shouting usually makes it worse, my dogs bark sometimes if they hear foxes outside, they are being protective I guess. They don't bark for long so i can often leave it but if they persist I come down and firmly tell them to stop-which they do. I am sorry I'm not more help but there are lots of ladies on here that seem to know lots about this stuff so hopefully one of those will come along soon x

 

[MissJuly10]

DH has literally just told me that she barks or starts barking cos there's another dog across the road that barks and she just barks back. Given that the other dog is the reason for her barking, I don't know what to do. DH has suggested allowing them to sleep in our room, that way they wouldn't be able to see outside and we would be able to tell her to shush straight away. Or we might be able to put the baby gate at the top of the stairs and allow them to sleep upstairs although I'm not sure that doing this will resolve anything if the problem is actually another dog. x


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[SeonaidMac]

If you have them sleep in your room then it'll be really hard to have them sleep anywhere else and leaving them alone in the house will become harder as they'll be so used to you being around more, so I wouldn't suggest that. Maybe having them upstairs on the landing or a spare room??

Possibly even speak to the other dog owner..

 

[MissJuly10]

We don't know which house the dog is in as we haven't seen another one around.

The dogs used to stay in our room but that was when we had our old sofas and they could pretty much roam about as we could leave the bedroom and kitchen doors open. To be honest I'm happy for them to stay on the landing, I'd prefer this to them being in our room. I'll see if DH can put the babygate upstairs. X


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[tinks77]

One of my staffies will get up and bark in the night at stuff outside, she has for a few years now had her own duvet and touch wood its only occasionally now, might be nothing to do with the duvet but she does love to wrap herself up in it and snuggle down for the night x

 

[MissJuly10]

The one that barks normally curls up on a dining room chair and has done so for a while now but we are going to get a proper bed for them but the other two are destructive and tend to chew if they feel like it so it probably won't last long but we'll see. Going to try letting them sleep up on the landing and see if that helps at all. X


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[MissJuly10]

We allowed all 3 dogs upstairs last night and they all slept in our room with absolutely no problem. Zero barking and surprisingly enough they didn't jump on the bed either so we got to keep our share of the duvet lol. Looks like they will be sleeping upstairs now! X


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[MissJuly10]

Also, we left the bedroom door open so they could come and go but they stayed in the bedroom all night. x


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[tinks77]

That's good, maybe they just want some comfort of knowing your right there and will eventually go back downstairs, or they are planning their next stealth move to get on the bed lol

 

[MissJuly10]

I reckon it's defo forward planning to get on the bed lol. They are sneaky little gits! Not sure how long to keep them upstairs before putting them back downstairs...x


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[SeonaidMac]

I reckon it's defo forward planning to get on the bed lol. They are sneaky little gits! Not sure how long to keep them upstairs before putting them back downstairs...x


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Haha yeah we have 5 dogs and they all have a master plan to take over the bed... we have a picture of all the dogs snuggled on our bed with the caption the hoomans are on the couch tonight lol....

Glad you had a quiet night... funnily enough one of ours woke us at 4.40am barking grr.... lol

 

[MissJuly10]

Lol aw bless! x


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[Hope81]

We had the same problem when she was little, she would bark in her crate (she was crate trained)
We ignored it and she stopped. It was hard to resist the temptation to get her in the room but she now knows her sleeping place is the crate that's in the basement and after the night walk age goes directly at the basement door and waits for us to open it so she can go sleep until the next morning when we get her upstairs. Being still a puppy she also goes happily in her crate for a nap while we are not at home to supervise her. Until now we actually had 0 chewing or other destructive incidents.

Probably though that's a no no for you and the neighbors and I doubt it would work if it wasn't crate training since the beggining.

My cousin had the same problem and used a special barking collar. Every time the dog was barking at night the collar would vibrate, if it keeps barking it will emit a painless electric sock that gets bigger and bigger while the barking continues. She only had to use it one night until the dog got the idea that barking at night is bad.
I am not so sure if I would be willing to try that as sounds a little harsh, though it depends of what have you tried until now I suppose and how desperate you are. There are barking collars that spray water instead of electric sock too.

 

[MissJuly10]

Thanks for the suggestion of the collar, not sure I like the sound of the shock collar but the water one sounds interesting. x


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[SeonaidMac]

Thanks for the suggestion of the collar, not sure I like the sound of the shock collar but the water one sounds interesting. x


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You can get ones that just take compressed air and skoosh them just under the chin when they keep barking xx plain or citronella air xx

 

[MissJuly10]

Ooh thanks hun, will have a look. X


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[SeonaidMac]

Ooh thanks hun, will have a look. X


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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Innotek-Ant...VAQ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346768396&sr=8-1

Here you go here's an example xx