SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Our dog will be 11 next month. He recently began a new behavior that we're at a loss about.

The morning routine is, H always gets up hours before I do. He dresses in the bathroom, and when he walks out of the bedroom, pooch follows him, and hangs with him while H is making his lunch for the day. H feeds pooch and lets him out to potty. Right before H leaves for work, he comes back to our bedroom and opens the door, so pooch can come back in, jump up on the bed and he has always gone back to sleep until I'm ready to get up.

About a month or so ago, after H let pooch back into our bedroom, pooch would jump up on the bed, but when he'd see H leave, he'd follow him out to the living room. He wouldn't stay in our bedroom, even if I would give him some nice scratches and rubs. He'd go to the dining room French doors, sit there, and just bark at the outside. Sometimes, if I use my sternest voice and yell at him, he will go back to our bedroom with me, but by the time I've done this, I'm so frustrated that when I get back in bed, I have a hard time going back to sleep. So my sleep has been poor the last month.

I decided a couple of mornings to let him bark it out, and see how long he'd do that. Yep, a full hour before he'd give up and come join me in the bedroom. Then he'd crawl up on my legs and go back to sleep; I would, too, if I'd been barking that long.

Then it occurred to me that pooch is barking... because it's dark outside! Once the sun comes up and it starts to get bright outside, that's when he's returning to the bedroom (which, BTW, has blackout curtains). So there's something anxiety-provoking to him about looking out the French doors, into the darkness. This is the first winter he's done this.

I know he's not responding to anything he's hearing outside because his hearing is terrible. He has long, furry ears and he really doesn't respond to noises (doorbell, door knock, phone ringing, etc.). We can return home from errands, he can be asleep 20' from the door on the couch, and we can walk in, start putting groceries away, etc., and he doesn't budge from his nap. He only really wakes up when his smell kicks in that we're home. Then he jumps down off of the couch and greets us.

We have a bark collar - the kind that vibrates, not shocks. Our daughter recommended it to us a couple of years ago when we were having issues with him barking at other pets walking in front of our house. But I never liked putting it on him, so it's been sitting in a drawer. That's an option we might try on Monday.

So this morning, H got up after it was light outside, fed pooch and let him out to potty. Then he left for the grocery store before I was awake, not letting pooch back into our bedroom. He found pooch on the couch, asleep when he returned from the grocery store, and he never barked once while H was gone, which is leading me to the 'barking at the dark' theory I've developed.

There's not much we can do about dark mornings right now, and I'm not going to start getting up in the mornings when it's still dark out. Any suggestions/insight? I've probably left out something, but this is the best summary I can think of right now.

Hmmm, I have a theory but don't know your dog, just what it would tell me if our old dog had done this; see what you think.

Background: our old dog forever anticipated his morning ride in the truck up to the local country grocery store with his "Dad" who used to get a hot breakfast up there with a cup of coffee. I don't like or fix coffee, so that was the "boys" routine. The guys at the store would even give our Kodiak a bite of their breakfast sandwiches, as most months of the year, they would all be sitting around the picnic table out in front of the store. Years later, the store stopped hot food service but still made coffee for the regulars, so the dog's morning ritual continued even with no treats. I'd estimate he got over 3,000 such rides until the day before he died, when he couldn't get up - and that told me everything.

So here is what I suspect: something at the destination has changed enough that the dog reeeellly wants to go with his Pops. Another dog? Food? something that interests the old dog more than sleeping in with Mom, sorry to say. I'd explore this.

I was going to suggest doing the hard 180, installing a VAR, and consulting an attorney.
But in all seriousness your doggy might be going blind. See a vet.

@superesse - there's really nothing else that has changed. Except it's now dark in the morning, and he's got some big French doors (with side panels) from our dining room to the patio, with no window treatments on them to block his view. In our backyard, we have some motion sensor lights that go off occasionally, but they've always gone off - that's nothing new. Very occasionally, after dark when we're in the living room watching TV, he'll catch a glimpse of himself or us in the reflection off the windows on those doors, and start barking randomly; it's the same kind of bark I'm getting from him early in the morning And FWIW, given H or me to hang with, unless I'm still asleep and H is at home (the 20 minutes or so between when H wakes up and leaves for work, or on weekend mornings), he will almost always choose to hang with me. Right now he's asleep on my bed pillows behind my neck. H is in the living room watching TV. When pooch wants to be a lap dog in the colder months, it's always my lap he chooses. I've pretty much always been his favorite. The common denominator here seems to be the darkness in the morning.

When we used to live in a condo, four years ago, H would always walk pooch before he left for work, and pooch knew that was coming every morning. So yesterday I asked H to walk him before going to work, thinking that might distract pooch by changing up the routine/habit when he got back to the house and H left for work, but that didn't work.

We are very regular with vet care; this breed has genetic tendencies toward heart murmurs His most recent physical was probably less than two months ago, and everything was fine. If this continues, I will take him back in again, but they saw nothing wrong with anything in his most recent visit.

Dogs are complex, that's for sure. Having had 2 independent-minded shepherds, I have learned that when my female dog barks incessantly, she is doing it for possibly several reasons, but the usual reason is: she wants to "go for a truck ride." She can be sitting on my bed like she is right now, and if my H comes and asks her "Do you wanna go for a Truck Ride?" her ears perk up and she will instantly start frenzied barking, until she gets that outside door to open (i.e., gets one of us to open the door so she can run to the truck!) It is like her barks are commands to "do something." Even though we are right there, her need to bark seems driven by her desire to go-go-go. She will also bark to call us back to her if we happen to be leaving without her. I have come to realize our dogs know/knew a lot more than we realized about what we were planning to do. They seem to want to be part of the plan.

So that was my first thought. Could be dementia I suppose, too. Hope not!

A vet once offered an explanation for our girl dog's 3 am suddenly growling when we had all been asleep: some critter was probably outside that she could hear. Like a cat. We did find some tracks one time after she had been doing that for a couple days.

Any new neighbors with cats?

Deaf dogs bark a lot, try checking his hearing.

number4, how did your old dog do this morning?

I was awakened at 3:30 am by my Missy whining....why? Heard my cell phone emitting a "beep-beep" alarm (had been set a week earlier for a 5 am event and never cancelled). Ever since a poorly-handled incident with a digital rectal thermometer when she was a pup, she's hated any kind of "beep-beep" noises. Actually, her frantic whining woke me up before the phone would have. I silenced the phone, told her to go back to sleep, but 10 minutes later she started whining again. I'm guessing because she had gotten excited by being jarred awake and now felt like she should be let out to go pee. I told her "Go back to bed!" and then she was fine. Sheeesh. I'm off to a late start because of all that.

Old dogs do all kinds of goofy things. My girl has started wandering off, so she has to wear her shock collar when I let her out, because she is crossing our country road where people come around the corner, and floor it because there is a straight stretch. I certainly don't want her to die because of being hit.

I have always trained w/ shock collars, and have never shocked a dog on a setting I haven't tried.
It doesn't hurt them it gets their attention, and yes our collars have a bark function, they escalate so 2 barks it vibrates, 3 barks it gives a low shock, 4 barks it ramps up. It also has a reporting function, so they never bark more than woof woof woof. Which is good enough to get your attention, and makes them quiet down.

So to help you get some rest I would encourage the bark collar to help quiet him down, but you may also want to consider covering the windows until the days start getting longer again in a few weeks so it isn't dark.

So, yesterday morning, his barking was limited to maybe four or five barks, then he returned to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed and went to sleep. So he obviously made the connection between the bark and vibrate.

This morning, it was more like 8-10 barks before he came back to the bedroom, but shit, this beats an hour! So it seems the bark collar is going to work.

We can't really cover the French doors from the dining room to the backyard because they're the main way out to the patio to the backyard. We can't even install screens on those doors. It's a pain, but it's not a bedroom, so I don't care when the morning light comes in. But our bedroom French doors have black out curtains on them; unfortunately, it's not our bedroom where he's doing the barking.

We'll see how he does tomorrow morning!

My big ole' Golden was almost 15 when he crossed the rainbow bridge. He lost his hearing and would watch me closely and 'seemed' to read my lips. He was the neighborhood ambassador and visited the older neighbors (only 13 homes on my dead end country street (about two miles long) and 9 homes are retired folks. It got to the point he'd go visit and I'd have to go get him. I think they all welcomed him inside for their visits. Just so you know, the traffic on my street is VERY light and he was never one to walk in the middle of the road. I think older doggies get paranoid to a certain point and routine is VERY important to them. I would think your doggie, like MOST of us - hate the daylight savings time change. And he doesn't like his "Dad' leaving when it's dark and it upsets his routine.

My ole' Golden had to check on the barn cats every morning. Like many people in the country, I acquired most of these cats because they were just DUMPED and I took them in. One was pregnant and Golden boy helped take care of the kittens until I found homes for them. It was not unusual to see all four baby kitties curled up with him, sleeping. He liked to take 'care' of me and also any animals around. One thing he did NOT like was the raccoons coming around pouching the outdoor food and he'd run them away. But he never hurt them.

Maybe when the time changes back, your sweet, older child will settle down. I do think it has to be scary for them when they can't hear as well as they did before.

There is semi-opaque film you can get that you can cut and "stick" (it actually just clings) to the glass panes in the french doors. If his barking is due to a new cat or other animal walking past the doors, that'll stop it. I used to have a first-floor apartment with sliding glass doors, and my dog was a nightmare until I put film up on the doors. She barked at everything that walked by, be it human or animal. I only went as high as the dog could see, so I still had my view out the doors. Fortunately, she's a corgi, so I didn't have to go up too high. It's pretty cheap too, and easily found on Amazon.

If you want your pooch to be on your bed then make it THE best place for him to go - get since nice treats (bits of chicken? Cheese? What's his favourite??) and encourage him back to bed with yumyums and fuss.

Chances are something's triggering him. My collie cross barks at EVERYTHING outside the window so we use a marker word "yes!" and a treat distraction, along with crate training. It's complicated so I'll not waffle on about it here but essentially you're making what you want from him to be the better of the options: barking stressfully or getting nice things in a comfy place.

OK, here we are a month and a half later - the bark collar is still working.

But! I took him in yesterday for a senior wellness exam; they recommend lab work based on what you cover with the vet. I knew they were going to take blood, and express his anal glands, but I guess they did a urinalysis, too. Got a call today from the vet, and his white blood count is high, and he had TWO different bacteria in his urine. I felt awful. I don't know how long he's had this infection going on. I know that senior humans can develop a lot of confusion and odd behavior when they have UTIs, but maybe dogs can, too. And maybe that explains why he was barking at nothing.

Anyway, I started him on an antibiotic today, and 4-5 days after he finishes it, I will take him back in to make sure the infection is gone by doing a repeat urinalysis. It'll be interesting to see if, in a few days, we try him without the bark collar, he returns to the barking.

But, MAN! I felt so bad when the vet called me with the news. He did say that our dog wasn't showing the typical signs of a UTI, so don't beat myself up for missing it.

Am hoping he starts feeling better in a couple of days.

You obviously love your dog very much and were trying to figure out what was upsetting him. The important thing is that you got him the care he needs.

Let us know if that was causing the barking.

Please don't beat yourself up about not knowing about something he has. It could very well not be related to anything you'd be able to pick up on; just that kind of lab test would show.

We lost our beloved Kodiak Thanksgiving morning from what we thought must have been related to his worsening pancreatitis or ??? We felt so helpless, as he spit up the only prescription pain pills we had and all area vets were closed! The following Monday, we asked for a post-mortem sit-down with the vet; I wrote down everything we had observed, and the vet put it together that the dog had been bleeding internally for the last few days of his life due to a hemangiosarcoma tumor rupturing in either his spleen, heart or lung. This assessment hit us completely out of the blue, as nothing had shown up on his senior blood work at all, and the vet said "It just doesn't." Also, the vet said dogs will hide their suffering as long as they can, it's a survival instinct.

Keep giving him the love and care, and best wishes it's something minor!

Usually dogs w/ UTI's have frequency and dribble, or even incontinence.
Don't beat yourself up. Unfortunately I doubt the 2 behaviors are related, and if the bark collar is working keep using it.

I use my collars most days. My old lady loves to just wander off, and their favorite trick without their collars on is one heads one way and the other the other direction, but with the collars on all i have to say is stay in the yard.

I hope the abx do their magic, but watch for loose stools, and if it happens add a 1/2 cup of yogurt to her food each day.

You never know with older dogs. You did the best you could and much more then most. A lot of people do not get there pets animal exams.

How is the little guy this week?

He's OK; little bugger peed on a blanket today on an accent chair in our office. If you haven't read my 'what papers do I need to keep' thread, I was in my office for about six hours today, purging and shredding. While he did have access (open door) to outside (so I know he could get out any time he wanted to), I think he was mad at me for ignoring him for so many hours.

No barking in at least a couple of weeks since we started using the bark collar. Maybe this week we'll try one morning without it.

When I had him at the vet last week, his heart murmur (his breed is famous for them), was upgraded from a 1, to a 2, so he goes back in this week for a baseline echocardiogram. Then late next week I will take him back for his follow-up urinalysis.

Thank God for pet insurance.