Doggy Bad Dreams/Barking At Night

Brodie is very protective of the house, and during the weekends when the 'youths' stagger up to the all night garage screaming and shoutinghe will lunge at the door and bark. However for the past couple of nights he's been barking a few times a night and no one has walked past. Normally if we go down and he's been barking at drunken teens, he's at the door with the hackles up. But over the past few nights when we've came down he's been sleeping, bed's not moved and he's not an a protective state just lying on his bed looking at you as if it's past your bedtime. He gets no attention when we've been down at night - any ideas??

It's possible that he's barking during R.E.M. sleep ~ especially if he still seems sleepy when you go down to see him at these times. My dogs & cats all do the normal twitching, snuffling, whimpering etc in R.E.M. sleep but occasionally one of the dogs utters a small bark!

If you think this is the case, then it's probably better not to disturb him. You can probably hear the difference between the agitated & loud barking that accompanies his fear about the drunken youths & the less fearful & quieter barks that he makes at othe other times.

It's a shame that he gets upset by the noise of the yobs going to the all night garage ~ it must be quite unsettling for him.

thanks. I'm just worried that the neighbours are gonig to start complaining and parent's are getting annoyed that he keeps waking them up! but luckily had no incidents last night

Have you tried leaving the radio on to help mask any noise from outside. It works with my Springer who can be very barky at night otherwise.