Why does my dog keep barking at night?

Dogs bark at nearly everything - every dog is different though. This could be due to loneliness, or the dog may have heard something. Anything that sounds or smells familiar can set off a dog to bark.

This is likely related to alert or loneliness/separation anxiety barking. If there are a lot of noises in the night, your dog is alert barking at those sounds. If the dog sleeps outside or inside, you can try moving them to a room or place that is quieter or get a white noise machine. If it's related to being lonely or bored at night your pup is just restless or dislikes not being near you while you sleep. You can try exercising them more before bed making it more likely they'll be tired/calm or you can work with their separation anxiety if that's the cause.

There may be several reasons for why your dog keeps barking at night.

1. If the dog is only allowed to go out during the night, he might get super hectic when released from the leash, since he has a lot of energy to waste.

2. Barking can be a signal for suffering. Maybe the dog is cold (remember: they don't feel temperature the same way as we do) or has some illness that is painful during the nighttime (like arthritis).

3. If you feed your dog only in the morning and the weather is humid, his food can get fermented, and the dog won't eat it. He might, then, be barking out of hunger.

4. Maybe he only has bad habits. If you go and speak to him when he is barking, the dog may think that this is a way to have you around.

5. There are dogs who bark during day and night. But when the night falls, it's more silent out there, so you may notice it more frequently or loudly. Dogs who won't stop barking usually suffer from separation anxiety, which should be treated.

Your dog is either barking for attention or responding to a stimulus. If it's about attention, your dog could literally miss you, and he's learned that barking brings his human out of the bedroom to visit him. This is a learned behavior that is conditioned by your response. If you're not coming out to check on him when he barks, this is probably not the case.

Alternatively, he's barking because of something making him alert. It's likely that he's hearing a dog barking a few houses away, hearing a truck zooming down the highway, smelling a mouse in the wall or seeing a shadow that's startling him. Many of these things are unavoidable, short of moving, but you can always try crate training your dog at night or letting him or her sleep near you at night.