Barking ALL through the night..

    • Gold Top Dog

    Barking ALL through the night..

    We've recently moved into a new apartment. We've been here for about 3 weeks now. The first week it was good.. the dogs didn't really bark much or behave badly. Gradually though, things have gotten worse.The people who live upstairs have dogs ..so if Chico even hears them a tiny bit, he goes off. Pedro only barks if he does. Chico will also bark if he hears something outside, or someone walking up the stairs, etc. If he actually sees a dog outside or a person, it's 100x worse. He'll almost try and charge at them. It's to the point where it's beyond annoying and he may just have to go live with my parents. 

    Nothing I have tried has worked. We've tried putting his bed in the room at night (figuring maybe he just wants to be near us - HAH), using a clicker, using that 'bark-off' machine, and just plain out using the Cesar Millan "SHH" ...Other than that, I've tried giving him a rawhide bone during the night to try and keep him occupied ..that plan failed miserably .. he gets extremely agressive with them and bites/grows at Pedro. I'm not sure if I should try getting a little radio at night so it blocks some of the noise out? But he'll also whine and cry if we keep him out of the bedroom.. He sleeps a lot during the day, so no wonder he doesn't want to sleep at 4am. But I do.

     

     

    • Gold Top Dog

     I'm sure others will come along and have much better advice than me. However my suggestion, since you say he sleeps a lot during the day is to keep him OCCUPIED during the day. Take him on long walks, maybe go on hikes if you have places nearby that allow dogs? That way at the end of the day he's too pooped to care.

    • Gold Top Dog

    What is your dog's socialization history with noise and with other dogs?  If he went from a quiet environment to an unfamiliar one where he always feels he must be on guard, then no wonder he's anxious and trying to alert you to everything being scary and wrong.  Call a good clicker trainer who does one on one training in the home, and begin a program of behavior modification that you can learn and be consistent with.  Going from method to method out of frustration is not productive, as you have seen, and no method produces overnight results, even though you probably wish it would quickly produce some overnight zzz's. 

    Note to lurkers...apartment sized dogs sometimes have estate sized voices;-))  Stay away from the yappy breeds if you want peace in a congregate environment.