Angel's Barking continued

[Angel Puppy]

So last week the problem was that she was barking in the morning and disturbing the neighbours...we decided (with suggestions from this board) to take her out for walks in the morning...once at 5 am when she wakes up and once at 6:30 am... This has helped potty train her better, and her barking is decreasing...BUT

now she has this nasty habbit of barking at 3 am and then at 4 am even at 2 am...she'll bark between 2 and 4 am...loud, continuous barks that last for about 10-15 minutes at a time (toy breeds are barkers after all )...anyways...we dont know why she does this...I am the one who puts her to bed (in her crate) and I always (or almost always) make sure that she is EXHAUSTED (I walk her about 2 hrs before bed time, bring her home and play ball or fetch with other toys...) She is constantly running back and forth...what more can I/we do? She still barks ALOT throughout the night...

Before the neighbour incident, she would bark like that in the morning...not she has changed her barking pattern... is it something to be expected of her? She is a papillon/japanese chin mix...maybe this is something that needs training?

How do we train this? see none of us want to get up since then we're scared of reinforcing the barking behaviour. I read in one of my puppy books that the only way to get a puppy to stop barking is to ignore it, since any attention is attention.

Thank you in advance,

[Jamilupine]

I don't know how long this has been going on or if someone may have accidentally reinforced barking at some point - so this next comment is a guess on my part!

I would guess that the puppy has been reinforced intermittently for barking. This produces a strong behavior that is resistant to extinction (removing all reinforcement for the behavior). So, what happens when you remove reinforcement is that you get a strong sharp increase in behavior. Your only hope is to be stronger and more patient that your puppy. When she barks, don't go to her. Wait until she has been quiet for a least a minute or two - IN ANY SITUATION. Try this CONSISTENTLY for at least two weeks.

Good luck!

[Tiffany0204]

It's hard to do, and I'm sure you're nervewracked right now. I hope it works out well soon for you! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you!

[Angel Puppy]

Thanks!

I'll try with that for now which is what we've been doing...

so i guess a few sleepless nights will stop the barking...

what i dont understand is that the barking use to go on during the morning and now it goes on during the night...

is she hearing things that are making her bark? should we close all our windows?

[Owned by Lucy]

Do you have her crated in your bedroom? When we first got our puppy he would bark sometime during the night if he could see/hear us. When we moved his crate to our bedroom the middle of the night barking stopped.

Also you may want to cover the crate with something to block out the light. Our pup would also start barking when the sun came up thinking it was time to get up. (also sometimes if I forgot to close the blinds and the street lights were on or a full moon would make him think it was time to get up). By blocking out the light until I was ready for him to get up it stopped that barking as well.

[Jamilupine]

I agree with owned by Lucy - Lucy (common dog name -huh?! ) sleeps in her crate in my bedroom with a sheet over the crate. I found that she didn't like to be in her crate without the sheet over it - she would get really restless in there.

[TribalRats]

I think both Jami and OBLucy have some great suggestions. I hope they work for you!

[iloveamlet]

i have the same problem. it came out of nowhere. amlet barks in the middle of the night, only a few barks...hopefully our neighbors can't really hear...we live in an apt. it's soo annoying!