Barking at night

tajo

I'm facing a really big problem with my 8 Months old JA Tajo.

He starts barking almost all the night long. We have to wake up and say shhh to him, and after that he stops, but then he starts again.

It is becoming very frustrating for us and also our neighbors. We cannot even identify the trigger for this barking, since he is ok when he hears other dogs barking outside, and this is not a problem for him. Usually he watches the front door and then starts barking with no apparent reason.

Do you have any tips/suggestions?

Thanx!

Koyuki

im no expert by any means- BUT do you crate Tajo at all? If not, it may help? ive found with our newest and youngest Shiba Kenji, that when we put him in his crate, he gets the chance to calm down and relax. This is his safe and familiar place. We dont use his crate as a time-out or punishment, its more to just give him the chance to settle down. We were lucky in that he was already crate trained when we got him, so we continue to make it a positive thing for him... Our other two Shibas (who are not used to being in a crate) will go into his crate to go to sleep....

I hope you get some relief soon- i have no idea what the JA's bark is like but if it is anything like the Shibas then i can see why your neighbours would not appreciate it. My neighbours laughed when they saw how small my dogs were---as when they bark the whole neighbourhood thinks there are wolves attacking or something lol

Myabee09

My Shiba "sings" in her kennel sometimes, but right after I got her, she screamed all night long! I put her kennel in a quiet room and started feeding her in the kennel right before bed time and just closed the door. I would do this about half an hour before I went to bed, and if she stayed quiet, I gave her a greenie to munch on and I went to bed. After a few weeks, the noise stopped, and she only sings when she's grumpy now.
I hope this helps, sleep deprivation sucks. I had never had this problem before I got Mya and I just had to figure it out on the fly. Good luck, and I hope everyone can sleep through the night soon!

ayk

Check his eyes for vision problems?

WrylyBrindle

Is he getting tired enough during the day, esp in the PM? Do you think he is genuinely disturbed by something outside OR do you think he thinks "If I bark at the door, my people get up! Watch, I'll do it again!" We had to endure some noisy nights when Matsu was a puppy, and just let him wail away till he realized that if his needs were already taken care of, there was no attention coming for making a racket. And it was damn annoying- he made such pathetic wailing and honking and lamenting!

I say check it out, and IF Tajo's needs are completely met AND there;s nothing outside, then see if he is just bored, not tired enough to go to sleep. Crate him in the room with you, so he cant go to the door- break that cycle. I am guessing this may be tough to let him bark it out with close neighbors- that I have no good answer for, except to apologize and explain that you are working on it.

tajo

@ayk:
Somehow i dont think that this is due to vision problems, since in most of the cases he is resting, or even sleeping, and then it looks like the bark is triggered by some noise since he first get distracted and lifts his ears up and then starts barking. Also he dosent do the same thing during the day, it looks like everything starts when it is becoming quiet, usually after 11:00PM. I might be wrong, but however i will send him to the vet to have his eyes checked.


@WrylyBrindle:
Tajo gets a daily 1 h morning walk, and then in the afternoon something like 20-30 min before "sleeping". I also thought that this might be the problem and tried to run with him before night time, after that he looked really tired, he rested for something like 15-20 min and started again barking.

Usually he barks facing the door, i say shhh on him and he stops, if I don't take any action then he will start with long barks and he might go to the door or even just bark laying down.

What i noticed yesterday when i came back home, he was alone in the apartment. When the elevator door opened i didn't hear any bark from him, after that while i was home, he heard the elevator door opening and he directly stared barking. Somehow i dont think that he can feel my scent and notice that it is me in the elevator, i might be wrong however.

Somehow it is "acceptable" for me if he barks when the elevator door is opening or when the cleaning lady is cleaning near the front door (since we can work this out and correct it), but i don't understand what is his trigger in the middle of the night when nobody is making any noise.

I somehow agree that he might just need attention from us, since he had to pas the night alone for 3 days and we didn't have any complain by the neighbors, I also asked them personally.

The nightmare happened the night that my girlfriend was there with him and I was not present, he stared to bark continuously and she couldn't stop him, she even got him in her bed, and he was barking while laying in the bed. She didn't sleep all night long.

Somehow i feel like he is barking only if we are present there, and i think that he is just demanding attention or being over-protecting towards us. I have even setup a camera to see what he is doing during the day, and he sleeps almost all day long. I intentionally left him alone the last night and after i left i noticed that he was staying there sleeping for 2-3 hours, with no apparent sign of barking.

At least the closest neighbor to us was somehow not really angry at us since he told me: "He barks sometimes, but our kids love to hear the dog barking, so we are OK if our kids enjoy it." :P

He also started professional behavior and obedience training 10 days ago. I know that this is somehow late, but in the country that i live we don't have puppy classes and the best trainer around here (which from what i have seen did really good job with other JA, after 2 months they were fully off-leashed trained), accepts puppies at least 7 months old to start the training.
He told us that this might be because he is over protective towards us, and also the fact that he is in the adolescent phase can cause this. His suggestion was to correct him with shhh, or even with leash pulling (Cesar Millan style) and with patience he will stop barking.