Barking at night

Wondering if anyone has any advice to offer about this, Rio has gotten into a habit of barking at night. Now when we moved to Hampshire we put it down to anxiety and moved his bed from downstairs to the spare room next to us so he was closer and couldn't see out the windows.

It got better and he tended to only bark when he needed the toilet, which i don't mind at all. But now it seems he barks randomly and i'm thinking it's to get our attention at times as when we go to see him he still is on his bed (not asleep) and then other times he'll hear things like foxes outside and thats when we calm him down.

But we both work shift work and it's affecting our sleep as it's happening about 3 times during the night, we're both nurses so to go to a busy ward sleep deprived isn't fun

That is difficult. Suki does something similar during the day. We taught her to speak and then taught the quiet command. When we hear something she would normally bark at we say good girl before she can bark. Seems to work okay but takes some time and patience.

See if we stick our head out of the room and shout "Quiet Rio!" he will normally do it, it's trying to stop him doing it at all :/ he can be quite needy so i think he just misses us at night which is hard to do something about as he isn't allowed in our room at night

Have u tried a radio on in the room where he is with soft music

Earplugs. If it is attention seeking, then any attention at all is a reinforcer. You need to grit your teeth and not do anything I'm afraid.

Mia05 wrote:Have u tried a radio on in the room where he is with soft music

Might give that a go tonight and see how we get on..

Liz we had a particular bad night with his barking last night and didn't get up for a long time hoping it'd pass but it was just continuous and i worry about our neighbours, because we're renting, if anyone were to complain our landlord can kick us out :/ but i agree that we're just doing what he wants when we go to see him to be quiet

Anyone tried those plug in relaxing smells for dogs? Reckon that'd work at all?

If it's a behaviour to get attention rather than through stress, then I doubt if any plug in things would help.

Aversives aren't necessarily the first thing I'd reach for but in a case like this it might be worth considering an anti-bark collar, one of the ones that spray citronella. They do seem to get good reviews and aren't any worse than unpleasant for the dog.

This sort of thing... http://www.amazon.co.uk/PetSafe-Anti-Bark-Spray-Collar-Citronella/dp/B00EAPCD92