Being a pet owner to a beautiful and emotionally intelligent dog can relieve people’s stress and make their lives way happier.However, one of the cons of having a pet dog that no one warns you about is that your little, furry friend might pick up the habit of barking throughout the night. For humans, a few hours of sound sleep are essential if we want to function properly the next day, and a dog screaming in the house hardly creates the right environment for that.The first step towards a solution for your barking woes is to understand that dogs can only communicate with us through their barks, and they hardly realize that humans can’t decipher any of them. Once that is out of the way, the real work can begin.Did you know that your dog may be barking simply out of boredom? When dogs are alone and don’t have much mental stimulation, they simply choose to howl or bark! Your dog may also be barking in order to tell you that it needs something, such as a toy or some food. If you have somehow forgotten to keep the door to the loo open, you may expect some barks in the middle of the night reminding you of your mistake.Whatever the cause may be, it is important that pet parents try to understand their furry friends and love them despite their more annoying habits.If you enjoy this article, why not also check out how often do dogs need shots and why do I love my dog so much.Why do dogs bark more at night than in the day?Having a pet dog can be amazing, but hardly any pet parent feels this way when nighttime barking begins. Humans, whether the owner or a next-door neighbor, need sound sleep in order to wake up fresh the next day. Unfortunately, sound sleep seems well out of the question with a noisy dog barking at night.While dog barking is a natural behavior and cannot be avoided completely, it is natural that a pet owner will want their dog to stop making such loud noises at night. The first step to solving any problem that involves an animal is to understand what may be causing the unwanted behavior in the first place. Dogs bark at night for many reasons, and crate training can be one of them.If your pup has just started its crate training, chances are that it absolutely hates the training and would rather sleep with its human friends. When left alone in a crate at nighttime with no interaction from its owner, a pup may start to feel bored and uncomfortable in its environment. In such cases, bedtime can be a particularly stressful time for a pup, and it will definitely try to avoid boredom and loneliness using whatever methods it can think of. In most cases this will result in barking. During crate training, most dogs also feel uncomfortable and sad about being confined to a small space. Even if your dog has been trained to sleep in a crate, you may find it howling at night. Such bedtime behavior from an old and trained dog shows that the animal has grown out of its crate and there is not much space for it to turn around or move inside.Nighttime barking may also be caused due to separation anxiety. If a dog feels like its owner has abandoned it at an isolated part of the house, it may also construe that the separation would last forever. Such anxiety can lead to particularly loud barks that can keep you awake through the night.Your pet may also start barking for hours because it is boring when the entire house is quiet and there is no one to play with. This may also happen if a dog hasn’t had much exercise during the day. If your dog has been snoozing around in its crate or bed all day (as a part of dog training) and has not had much exercise, there is little chance that it will sleep at night. Instead, to make sure that the lack of exercise is compensated for, your little canine buddy will bark for hours or even have an extreme case of zoomies!If you hear your dog bark at night, it may also mean that it is scared or wants to protect the house. As a way of sounding the alarm, your pet may start barking regularly during nights!One of the simplest reasons why your pet may be barking instead of sleeping at night is because dogs are pack animals. One evolutionary trait of these animals is that, while the pack sleeps, a few members stay up in order to protect everyone. If your pet has been standing guard at the door of your room and barking at pretty much nothing, it may be trying to make sure that it keeps any dangers away.Dogs and puppies also have particularly sensitive ears and noses. A puppy, or even a fully grown dog, can hear sounds of a much larger range of frequency than any human. At night, when everything may seem quiet to you and your neighbors, your pet can still pick up on a lot of sounds that can terrify it. Strange noises behind shut doors can cause fear in these animals and lead to obsessive barking from your pet dog.Barking at night is a common phenomenon in dogs. You can prevent it from turning into a routine in a couple of foolproof ways.Why do dogs bark at night for no reason?While you may think of the nighttime as quiet and peaceful, dogs can often be struck with separation anxiety at this time of day. Some dogs have extreme anxiety about losing their owners, and they can vocalize this fear in the form of barking at night.When all their humans are tucked away in bed, many dogs yearn to be let into the owner’s bedroom to join them. While dog training is important, and you should definitely try to make your pet understand that nighttime is when everyone should be sleeping, it can also be important to make sure that your room is not out of bounds if a puppy needs anything.As humans, we may think that there is no reason why a dog should bark at night. However, such behavior on your dog’s part could be a sign of several things. Barks can be a result of bodily pain and discomfort, and so, if this behavior persists for hours, make sure to plan a visit to the veterinarian.Your pet dog may also be extremely bored while everyone else sleeps. As absurd as it may sound, dogs sometimes bark to entertain themselves! To avoid this situation, make sure that your canine buddy has had enough exercise for it to be able to fall right to sleep. Once all their pent-up energy is gone, your pup is sure to sleep right through the night without a single sound to be heard!How To Train Dogs Not To Bark At NightIt can be quite annoying if you can hear dogs barking at night when you just want to catch up on some sleep.One tip that may help you in training your dog not to bark at night is to simply ignore it. A soothing voice or a treat is sure to attract the opposite result. The main purpose behind a dog’s barks is to grab someone’s attention, and, if its human parent does end up waking up to pet it, the animal will hardly stop. Your dog will never stop barking at night if it keeps getting the attention it so desperately wants. As tough as it may sound, try to ignore your pet completely if you think it is just barking for the sake of entertainment. Consider buying yourself some nice earplugs or a white noise machine that can cancel out the noise in your room.Since dogs also bark at night in order to use up all of the energy that they could not during the day, the simplest thing to do is to play with your pet during the day. A long walk or jog at the nearest park, or even a game of fetch in the yard, can earn you a few hours of sleep.If you realize that your dog barks at another dog that it can hear at night, try to install a white noise machine in the room in which your pet sleeps. A few noise-proof curtains can also be an effective solution. If you are tired of hearing your dog bark at night and don’t mind spending a little extra money, consider having the entire house noise proofed. This will not only ensure that your dog’s ears aren’t troubled with extra noise but also means that you won’t hear hours of drilling noises from your neighbor’s house on Sundays!Noise and a new environment can cause dogs a lot of mental pain. A few tips to avoid such situations include playing some calming music and spending a lot of time with your dog. If there are any particular sounds that always bother your pet but which you cannot stop from penetrating the walls of your house, give your dog a treat every time the noise does break through. This will change your dog’s thought process and make sure that the little pup does not feel the need to bark!Why do dogs bark at a certain time of night?It may seem like your dog decides to start barking at a particular hour of the night on a regular basis.This routine can be totally annoying for any pet parent since, while a barking dog is manageable during the day, most owners want to be sleeping instead of training their dog during the night. Your pet dog may be barking at certain hours of the night because it has developed a routine of waking up around that time. Such a schedule can be very harmful to your circadian rhythm and for the bodily functions of the animal itself. While the dog’s behavior may seem strange to you as an owner, have you ever thought of how you sometimes wake up around the same time during the night and feel the need to use the restroom? The same can be the case for your dog or pup as well! If your dog barks, instead of completely ignoring the fact that it might need something, make sure that your friend is okay and that it has access to a pee pad. If the room is completely locked and there is no way that your trained dog can access its pee station, the poor animal may be in agony. In this situation, barks serve as your pet’s only mode of communication.At the same time, dogs have just as many nightmares as humans do. When a nightmare has been particularly scary, it may just so happen that your dog wets its bed. In such a case, it might be very uncomfortable for it to sleep in this same spot. Make sure that, if such an incident does come to pass, the dog is not scolded. Just as a human child would need some extra cuddling and love after such an incident, a dog is no different. Accidents are bound to happen and punishments will only taint the beautiful bond that you share with your beloved friend.If you have been taking all the precautions to make sure that your pet dog or puppy is quiet during the night and nothing seems to be working, consider getting some professional help for your pet. Calming products and trainers can be particularly expensive and some pet owners may also feel like they are unnecessary. However, sometimes, the issues are much deeper and will need immediate attention from someone who knows the exact tricks to sort out your dog’s barking. In the end it will be worth it for the sweet sound of silence as you try to sleep!Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for why do dogs bark at night, then why not take a look at why do dogs wink, or Eskimo dog facts pages?
Being a pet owner to a beautiful and emotionally intelligent dog can relieve people’s stress and make their lives way happier.
