[linda855]

our one year old king charles cavalier has started to bark in the middle of the night. he is content to sleep in bed with us, but if he wakes up in the night he goes downstairs and looks out the window. we don’t know what attracts his attention, but he’ll bark - a lot - the deeper, aggressive bark.

i’m thinking we should go back to the crate, which he was fine with until a few months ago.

i’m with him all day long, and we take 2 long walks each day. he gets another long walk at night. he’s a happy, friendly, loving pup for the most part.

 

[JoanneF]

Could there be something outside that he is hearing, maybe activity from something as daylight gets earlier?

Some simple adjustments like heavier curtains and white noise might help.

If not, training a ”settle” during daytime might be a good idea, once he understands it you could use it at night.

 

[Pertalote]

Are you sure you want to discourage his alertness though? I would want my dog to patrol the house and bark if something is outside. We live in a rural area without much traffic... I guess it would be different if there is traffic and activity outside all the time. I am currently between dogs :/

 

[Mad Murphy]

This is one reason why my dogs sleep upstairs , we sometimes get drunken students coming home at 3am and its amazing but no one hears the cause but everyone hears the result ie the dog barking...We use a baby gate which we bought to stop my mother in law falling (alzhiemers) and carried on using as my other dogs got old. Now it works to help stop wandering.

If my boys growl or bark at night we get up and look , they dont do it for fun.