Puppies barking at night can be one of the most annoying puppy behaviors you run into. When I picked up my first puppy I had one single goal…I thought to myself: If there’s one thing I’m going to do it’s house train my puppy. I thought this would be the most difficult task when entering puppy parenthood. Potty training came easy to my first puppy, but when night time rolled around and time for us to go to sleep it was a whole different story.
Puppies Barking At Night
Over the past five years I’ve raised a litter of 7 puppies, a litter of 3 puppies, my Aussie mix rescue puppy, and 2 guide dog puppies in training. The litters of puppies seemed to bark and cry at night in unison wanting their next meal or just some attention. However, most nights they were quiet and happy to be in the company of their fellow litter mates. I had far fewer issues dealing with the litters of puppies barking at night compared to the individual puppies.
My first puppy was a night barking puppy. It all started with his first night at home. We picked him up from the shelter and he unfortunately was not very healthy at the time. He passed out early and I transported him to his crate just inside the garage (I had him sleep in the garage the first couple nights because he was infested with fleas). After a couple hours my little puppy began barking, crying, and whining. I took him outside, he pee’d, brought him back into the house and he went back to sleep. This ritual continued for the first two nights.
So what did I learn? Young puppies often times cannot make it through the night without having to go potty. In general they will not pee where they sleep. Puppies will bark, whine, or cry to let you know they need to go potty. Most puppies do not have full control of their bladder until they are 10-12 weeks old. Stop giving your puppy water a couple hours before you put him to sleep this minimizes the amount of times your puppy will wake up in the middle of the night.
Puppies Barking At Night Part II
After a couple nights, a visit to the vet, and a drastic improvement in my puppy’s health he had more energy and apparently a different reason to bark at night. Here’s my theory: The first few nights he barked for basic necessities — to go potty — now that he was feeling much better he had a different reason to bark — he was lonely and missed his litter mates.
How did I solve my night barking puppy this time?
I tried plenty of different methods, but the one that worked best was to first move the crate into my bedroom. Unfortunately this didn’t completely solve the problem as my puppy still barked at night. Instead of sleeping in my bed I got a pillow and blanket and laid on the floor next to my puppy with my hand and body right up against the crate. Apparently he felt comfortable with this layout and my little puppy finally stopped barking at night.
I continued to sleep on the floor for a couple weeks until my puppy got used to his new home and surroundings and eventually stopped barking at night without me sleeping on the floor next to him. YAY! Mission accomplished.
How about you? Have you been in a similar situation with your puppies barking at night? How did you solve your problem?
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