Dogs Barking at Night

Are the dogs your dogs or a neighbor's dogs? Ah, that makes a huge difference. I once while in college lived right next to neighbors who had two dalmatians. Those were seriously underexercised and ignored dogs and did they ever bark. Yap! Yap! All hours of the day and night. Boy it's rough trying to sleep before tests with that constant yapping going on.

Why do the dogs bark? There are several general reasons. One is some dogs are just prone to bark. Some breeds bark more than others. Dogs just bark. But excessive barking especially at night happens because it just works out ok for the dog to bark. The dog owner has permitted the barking and there are no real negatives that happen to the dog. That's the overall cause but what about from the dog's view of the world?

Maybe the dogs bark from boredom. During the day the dog may have plenty of interesting things to do but at night nothing is happening and it's just plain boring. So yap, yap, yap. Canines are social creatures and many dogs are seriously lacking interaction with other animals and people and thus crave some attention. Unfulfilled social needs may result in a lot of racket.

Further, owners often underestimate the amount of exercise required by their pets. Breeds vary but all dogs need exercise and the more active dogs need lots of exercise to be happy. So a dog without exercise is a bundle of energy looking for an outlet. That bundle of energy may turn into a bundle of barking especially at night without enough activity.

Finally, maybe overlapping some of the other ideas is that dogs sometimes get lonely and maybe even a little scared. Our cocker spaniel never barked much except at night. The solution to that is to put the dog somewhere secure. That may be in the doghouse with the door closed or inside the house, whichever is best for you.

You can train your dog to refrain from barking at night, but what about the neighbors' dog? You can talk to your neighbor and offer suggestions. You may get permission to work with the dog to train it to stop barking, but not likely. Another suggestion is ultrasonic noise generators that bomb noise at the neighbors' dogs , noise that is not audible to humans. Reports are mixed whether these work or not. Seems to work with some dogs but not with others.