# Rescue dog barking at night



## Jers00 (Jan 9, 2013)

Hey I really hope you can help me!
We have had our 12 year old westie kiera for about five years now.
She had been abandoned at the kennels which is attached to the cattery where we take our cat occasionally and we adopted her.

It was quite obvious not long after we took her home that she had previously been subject to abuse. If a man who she doesn't know comes to the house she will attack and bite him. It takes a long time for her to warm to people. If she feels under attack she will attack anyone. We never let her off her lead.

She isn't the best behaved but due to the fact I'm sure she has been abused and when she is happy she is extremely loving and playful i find it hard to completely blame her for this. I love this dog very much, which everyone in my house doesn't agree with. There has been talks of having her adopted by someone else but to be honest I just couldn't do it and we now can handle her behavioural issues apart from one thing.

She barks at night. In the day time she barks in the usual way, if something comes through the letter box ect but will stop after a minute or so. 
At night she just doesn't stop. We have tried leaving her for 30+ minutes and the barking was constant. As soon as anyone goes down stairs she will just stop and be fine.
At the moment my 17 year old brother sleeps on the sofa which to be honest he really likes but i don't think it's healthy for him and if he does go to bed she will just bark until someone goes down.
We recently tried an anti- bark collar. The sound/vibrate one which we only put on her at night. It made no difference. It wasn't at all responsive and when it did she completely ignored it.

We are completely stumped at what do to. Generally she is quite well behaved, toilet trained and responsive but if she is in a bad mood she won't listen to anything. Disapline doesn't work because if she senses you're angry she gets scared and will do what she has to to protect herself.

The change in her behaviour is drastic, like a different dog. She loves cuddles and being sang to but when she changes there is nothing you can do.

I love this dog so much and we do what ever we can to make her happy but we have all lost so much sleep and I'd loved for this to be sorted.

I know there isn't a magic cure but if anyone can help us I would be very thankful!


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## tanglewood3 (Nov 13, 2012)

Is the barking at night something new. If it is, it's worth going to the vets.
Dogs do get a type of dementia, barking at night being one of the symptoms. (Loook it up on google)
One of my collies started to woof at night; like a tap dripping, she'd woof again just as you were falling back to sleep. She had tablets and it stopped and hasn't come back.
One of my friends had a collie which started getting night terrors and would toilet, they even tried sedation, but eventually had to have her pts.


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## newfiesmum (Apr 21, 2010)

She is only a small dog; is there some reason she cannot have her bed upstairs with one of the people? It seems to me to be the best solution as she is obviously scared to be alone, could be for any number of reasons, but it is definitely what I would do.

She is 12 years old, no point in even thinking about rehoming a dog that age and why should someone else take on the problems you haven't managed to sort in 5 years?

If, as said, it is recent, see the vet first.


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## sbonnett76 (Apr 6, 2010)

We rescued our 3 1/2 year old rottie just over a year ago and after the initial expected teething problems, she was fine for a few months, but then randomly started barking when she was put to bed (which is in the kitchen).

We tried all sorts of things from ignoring her to going down, but not speaking to or touching her and just letting her out for a few minutes. Normally, she'd bark again, but would eventually go to sleep. She too would stop the second we went downstairs and would be standing by her gate wagging her tail.

We checked with the vets and she was medically ok. It was suggested to us that she was simply trying it on, which knowing her personality, I can believe! Our trainer suggested that we left her for 10-15 minutes and if she didn't quieten down, we crept downstairs and the on the next bark, squirted her with water from a spray bottle. We were a bit reluctant, but at the end of the day, knew it wouldn't do her any harm. So, we did this and it worked. I had actually done a similar thing with one of my cats a few years ago as he liked to meow constantly during the night for attention and it worked then too.

She's not perfect every night, but we now go to bed with the squirter bottle on the table in front of her bed and it's definitely a deterrent.

Having said all of that, your doggy is 12 years old and if she has had a rough life, maybe that would be a step too far for her. As newfiesmum has asked, is there any reason why she couldn't be allowed upstairs? We don't allow our dog upstairs, but she's at a different stage in her life. Maybe this little old lady just needs and deserves a bit of extra special treatment to see her through.

Good on you for taking her on though. Too many people shy away from adopting older dogs, but you've done a wonderful thing by giving her a loving home.


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## Leam1307 (Feb 12, 2010)

deleted ....


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