Hi
I was wondering if anyone had any advice on my 5 month old labrador barking.  She never used to bark at night but all of a sudden for the last 2 weeks she has been barking during the middle of the night and is now barking at 5am when before she was barking at 7am.  Does any one have any idea why she might all of a sudden be doing this?
Thanks

Have you put your central heating on in the last two weeks? When our GR was a pup and the heating came on if the temperatures fell really low in the middle of the night the boiler firing up would wake him up and he would bark at the "strange" noise.

Don't know if it might have something to do with the clocks being reset (ok I know they can't read the time!!!!) but maybe something to do with the light etc?  Maybe try blackout linings etc?  No other thoughts sorry

Maybe she can hear something you can't hear, like foxes...

Are you still having trouble with your neighbours because of the barking or did that get sorted?

There may be all sorts of noises that might affect her wake up time but it's difficult to guess.  Is she crated?  You could try putting a blanket over the crate to darken it a little and muffle sound.  Although I wouldn't advocate complete cover, just the top and three sides might make a difference.  We do this for one of ours when there are fireworks.  Alternatively her internal clock may have shifted if you've increased her food recently?  Also do make sure she is completely empty before going to bed at night, if we left ours to their own devices they will do a quick pee and run back inside to get out of the cold!!  To be absolutely sure they do both one of us has to stand in the garden with them.  Oh joy :)

Finally, are you going to bed earlier?  With the clock change that could be enough to throw everything out of sync.  Perhaps you could try and wake up at 5ish one morning to see if you hear anything unusual...

Good luck with finding the answer and a quick solution