How To Stop Your Dog Barking at Night

Night time barking is a problem. If anything is going to trigger your neighbors to make a complaint about your dog’s noise, it’s barking during the night that will do it. And understandably so.

Night time barking affects everyone: both the owner of the dog (as they try to stop it happening and deal with potential complaints or worse from the neighbors), and the anyone within hearing range of your dog.

If you are trying to stop your neighbor’s dog from barking at night, see our article on dealing with problem dogs in the neighborhood.

This article will focus on what to do when it’s your dog that is waking up the neighborhood at all hours.

Like with all excessive barking situation, the first step is to identify why the dog is barking.

So you must ask yourself:

Why is my dog barking at night?

Night Noises

Strange and mysterious sounds occur at night – often we can’t even hear them if they’re too far away, but your dog can.

Depending where you live, there could be all manner of wildlife making various noises. This can be enough to set a dog off barking.

Wildlife

It’s not just the sound of wildlife that can cause a dog to bark too much at night, but the sight of them. If you have any nocturnal critters turning up at home at night and within sight of your dog, it will almost always elicit a territorial or simply a curiosity bark response.

Setting up a camera to ID what and where any night time animals are coming into your property can at least help identify the cause.

You could then move your dog to a position at night where he or she won’t have visual sight of the animal (though it’s harder to stop them being heard), or to modify your property to discourage nocturnal animals from coming too close to the house – whichever is in line with your priorities (many people love having wildlife close by, so striking a balance between keeping your dog happy and quiet, and not completely discouraging wildlife is often a choice people make).

Anxiety

AS with barking during the day, a dog may bark at night at any time due to anxiety.

Dogs that are left alone outside at night are obviously prone to this. Leaving a dog outside all night is rightly questioned and discouraged by most people – dogs are part of the family.

However if it’s not possible to allow your dog to sleep inside the house, having an enclosed patio area fit out with a secure kennel or dog house is the next best option.

Obviously, your dog needs to be potty trained for this to work.