Our 8 month old westie (male) has recently taken to barking soon after we have put him to bed. He sleeps on a bean bag in the kitchen. Sometimes the barking goes on for some time. On other occasions, he stops then starts up in the small hours. He always goes out into the garden last thing before he goes to bed. Could he be scared of the dark? Or a light from outside (though I can't think of any)? Could he be "communicating" with a distant dog we might not be able to hear? Will he grow out of it? Any similar experiences? Any ideas on how to stop it?

Ian and Julie

Could it be the noise made by the bean bag? As far as what to do, well I can tell you what not to do and that is get up to him, if you can totaly ignore him and change his bed to somthing quiter I would have thought he would give up after a few days. May be just tring it on. Jackie H

Hi Jackie H

He gives every appearance of liking his bean bag when we're there - he often sleeps on it during the day. We asked Santa Paws to bring it for him for Christmas - previously Woody slept on an old blanket, and he seemed to be telling us something when he completely pulled the blanket to pieces! Food for thought though - thankyou :-)

Ian and Julie

I'm sure he loves his beanbag, but if he turns over in the quite dark night and the bean bag makes the noise that bean bags do, it could startel him before he is properly awake. Try another piece of old blanket for a few days before he becomes used to barking at night. If it makes no difference then give him back his bean bag he may as well bark in comfort. Jackie H.

One of my GSP's is terrified of the bean bag Jackie....lol

Ian & Julie have you got any foxes? Our kennel dogs bark at 3 o'clock in the morning. On further investigation,we discovered that foxes jump our fence and run over the kennel roof. If your dog can hear something moving around outside, he is warning you. Have you tried telling him to be quiet? :-)

Leigh

Vixens are in season at the moment as well and their screaming carries a long way - my lot keep joining in by howling

Christine

Do you turn off your central heating just before going to bed.
This can make a noise cooling down which the dog only hears when you have gone to bed.

Our rescue dog barked at night for several weeks after he came to us. One thing we tried which did work was to have a baby alarm the wrong way round, so we could tell him to be quiet without having to go into the room.

However, to be honest, he was totally disrupted again after the last fireworks night, and I didn't have the energy to go through all that again - so we gave in, he came to our bed-room and slept like a lamb for the rest of his life....
Cathy.

I'm not sure why he's barking , but I think it would be best to ignore him because if you respond it may reinforce his barking. Just MHO.

I found that keeping a radio on very low volume helps. We've gone from barking several times during the night to maybe once a week. If it is a noise outside setting him off, maybe it will help.

I was talking to a friend t'other day with exactly this problem - her Springer bitch had just started to bark at night, in the small hours.

After quite a few nights of this, she realised the window catch was not properly fastened, and the window rattled a lot when it was windy at night, scaring the sound asleep dog. The dog also interestingly showed all sorts of other problems, it was grumpy during the day and attention-seeking which was unusual.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, she discovered the problem, fixed the window, and staright away the dog slept through and all was solved!!! :)

NOt suggesting the Westie's problem is necessarily a window :) as perhaps it does like the sound of its own voice, but it's always worth checking. Central heating boilers can sound "scary" at night to a dog too, as can the fridge....how about living in a tent.....:D

LIndsay

Hi everyone!

Thanks for contributing to this thread. Touching wood (no pun intended, our westie's name is Woody!), things are getting better. We now leave a radio on on a time switch until the early hours - we have always left the radio on for him during the day but it didn't occur to us to try the same trick at night :-) We also allow 30 seconds of barking before going down to say "be quiet". He knows this now, and usually stops just as Ian gets his slippers on! Once when Ian got downstairs, he found Woody lying in front of the cooker, which has a glass panel in the door. Even though it was dark, I suppose he could sense another dog in the room, so now we drape an old towel over the cooker door at night and that seems to help as well. He did wake us up recently at 3am and, as you suggest, he was warning us that the milkman was about in his electric-powered milkfloat!

Ian and Julie