Night time grumblings!

Hi Everyone,

I wonder if anyone can help with something we have been experiencing over the last few days.

Our pup Tilly (1 year old tomorrow!!!) has out of nowhere started to not settle at night and we want to nip it in the bud before a habit develops. I will give you some background...

We have never had any major separation anxiety with Tilly. She slept in our room the first two nights then in her crate in the kitchen from then on. She used to cry when we left the room when she was tiny but we used to go in when she was quiet and this soon stopped. She would actually happily play with toys when we left her alone for a while. We also work all day (with a big visit from one of us around lunchtime) and she has never had a problem whatsoever. To summarise she is generally a confident if very excited little dog. She knows lots of commands and is often praised by friends for her obedience for a dog her age.

We plan to move her over to a normal bed for her birthday and just use the crate intermittently (to prevent her disliking it) so we have been leaving her crate door open overnight and have had no problems. However on Tuesday it was blowing a gale and there were all kinds of crazy noises in our garden. This set Tilly off a bit and she started barking and grumbling.
Tilly has only recently discovered the joys of barking but this can be controlled swiftly with a firm ‘enough!’ This wasn’t working on Tuesday. I went downstairs (during a gap in her barking) and let her out so she could see that there was nothing bad and could do a wee etc. When I was there she was totally fine. I went back up and it started again, I repeated my ‘enough’, which again didn’t work. She was getting more wound up so I again waited for a gap in the barking and whining then went downstairs and shut her in her crate to settle. By the time I got upstairs she had started again so it became apparent that, although the wind started her off, she really just wanted us downstairs. We opted to ignore after this and after 5-10 minutes she stopped and went to sleep.

The following day we apologised to the neighbours who kindly said we can feel free to ignore or whatever we need to do as they love Tilly as well!

Wednesday was fine all day and evening and we were confident it was just a blip due to the weather. We decided to just do everything as normal. This was fine until we went to bed and it started again, barking grumbling and whining but no wind had set her off. Very Frustrating. We used ‘enough’ and ignored her and she soon stopped the barking. We could however hear her pacing about and messing with the bin etc. We waited for silence then popped her in her crate. After another grumble she settled.

Yesterday I upped the exercise and went for a really good run and game of fetch in the park. I don’t know about Tilly but I was exhausted! Again we had no problems until bed time. There was no barking, just whining and grumbling. We waited for quiet then went and closed the kitchen door (in case this would make her think we couldn’t hear her and make her stop. Plus the door is shut when were out during the day) instead she started flinging herself against the door and scratching at it while grumbling. We waited for quiet and popped her in her crate.

It is probably worth noting that we were off work a lot over August on holiday, therefore she saw a lot more of us. We stayed in a cottage for a week and she slept in her crate in the next room. We also stayed in a caravan for a long weekend and she slept in our room with us as the walls were thin and noises were setting her off a bit. Again though we waited until she was quiet then took brought her through. I assumed this would be ok as it is out of her usual routine and not at home? Also this was at the recent bank holiday and she had been fine at our house since then? Its literally just been the last couple of nights.

It seems clear that she is doing this for attention as there are no longer noises outside. Also we are certain that she isn’t poorly or anything as she is absolutely her normal self all of the rest of the time. Also she hasn’t really displayed any separation anxiety when left on her own when were around during the day? There’s no evidence she’s getting stressed when were out either as she hopped out of her crate wagging her tail and stretching when I opened our front door on lunch today? It’s just when we go to bed at night.

I think it’s a combination of her getting used to spending a lot of time with us recently, getting spooked on Wednesday, getting attention for this (us telling her off and putting her in her crate) and maybe adolescence?

We plan on going back to putting her in her crate on a night again for a while so that we can just ignore any noise without worrying about her damaging anything including herself. We hope that in doing this she will get used to being on her own at night again pretty quickly and learn that any noise doesn’t bring us down. I’m hoping this will crack it quickly as the correct foundation is there?

If anyone has any insight, feedback on what we plan to do or any advice at all it would be readily accepted from us and a surely very tired Tilly!

Apologies again for the massive post, it turned into a stream of consciousness! Please bear with me if I don’t always answer very quickly. It’s very sporadic when I can get online I’m afraid!

Thanks for taking the time to read. I have attached a pic of the cheeky little monkey!

Paul.