How to stop howling at night

[SC]

Hi all:

My 5 year-old has begun howling in the middle of the night, almost every night. Actually, she started doing this about a year ago. She does this when we're sleeping and it will happen anytime from midnight to 6am. We've lived in the same place, so I don't think anything has changed in our environment, internally or externally, to trigger this.

I thought she might be having a bad dream, but I get up and make noise to try to stop the howling and notice that she's awake and she won't stop howling.

Anyway, does anyone have a solution to stop this behavior ? I'm thinking of filling some sort of squirting device with vinegar/lemon juice and squirting her when she howls.

Any advice, suggestions, or feedback will be greatly appreciated.

[TrishB]

Has a new dog moved into your neighbourhood that's waking her up? Is it possible that you have wildlife that have moved in around your home? You need to find out WHY she's howling so that you can remove it.

By now, it's also become a habit. You'll need to break the cycle.

1) Have her sleep in a different place. Even across the room is enough of a change.

2) Have a low playing radio so that softer sounds that may be waking her will be drowned out. She'll get accustomed to the constant background noise and settle down better.

3) Make sure she gets a good long walk and plenty of exercise. A tired dog sleeps more soundly. ;)

[SC]

TrishB:

Thanks for the advice, but:

1) I don't think it's related to where she sleeps. She howled when we stayed with relatives out-of-state for a week. Also she sleeps upstairs most of the time. She sometimes howls when she naps downstairs.

2) Maybe low volume radio will help. She sleeps in our bedroom, so I'm not sure I want to hear the radio.

3) I think she gets plenty of exercise (maybe too much). We walk her (mostly off leash) in the woods three times a day, no matter what the weather for a total of about 90 to 120 minutes a day. She's not a high energy dog and she seems plenty tired after our walks.

Today I'm preparing a squirt bottle with vinegar and lemon juice. I'm going to give this a try when he howls when I'm sleeping tonight. (she woke me at 3:45am this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep). I hope this works.

[Rottnlove]

Is your girl spayed? I don't think that is the problem, but I'm just wanting a little more information about her.

This is totally bizarre! She sleeps in your room and has started howling? I sure hope my pup never starts this, because she's also in our room at night in her crate. So far so good.

Is she crated in your room?

[Carina43]

This is just a wild guess...could she have some neurological problem that causes her to go into some sort of fugue state and vocalise? Or even some sort of doggie psychological disorder...?
I know that sounds weird & maybe far fetched.

When my last Rottie was in his final few days with bone cancer, the vet gave him a very strong narcotic pain reliever (we weren't letting him suffer needlessly, this was while we were awaiting the results of the bone biopsy.) Anyhow, he did the same thing, and the vet said the meds could cause him to become confused & possibly hallucinate.

Oh well, just a thought!

[k&s]

One of my rotties does this as well. Where he sleeps doesn't seem to matter. It begins as a low moan and then becomes a full howl, at which point the other rottie joins in. I used to be able to shout 'ENOUGH!' and they would stop, (when they were in our bedroom), but now that they are in room across hall (due to snoring, but that's another issue), my shouting doesn't seem to help. It dies down after a few minutes.

I can't imagine it is something that can be turned off, since it seems to start when they are sleeping. But I sure would be interested to know if anything you try works.

[SC]

Hi all. Thanks for the replies.

k&s: Your description of your rottie's howling sounds exactly like my rottie girl. Starts out with a low moan sound which leads to the howl. My other (younger) rottie girl then joins in. I had some early success getting her to stop by turning on the light and clapping my hands near her and calling her name, which I guess distracted her enough to stop. Unfortunately, this does not usually work anymore.

Well, last night I used a small squirt gun filled with water (instead of vinegar/lemon juice). She started howling and I gave her a couple of squirts and she stopped immediately, as did her sister who had joined in. It'll be interesting to see if this method will actually stop the howling, or if it will just have a short term effectiveness. I'll keep you posted.

Carina43: You bring up a number of good variables to consider (medication\illness\psychological disorder). I don't think I can rule out any of these variables at this point, but if these are factors it's not apparent to me at this point. She's been on the same meds for about two years taking a small amount of thyroid, along with glucosamine\condritin (the howling started about a year ago). One change that I believe occured at about the same time, was a change in diet. We started supplementing her diet with a pre-prepared raw diet that is bought frozen. I'll have to talk to my wife more about the timing of the diet change in relation to the howling.

Our howling girl was raised in a home/kennel environment for about 3 years with about 14 other Rotties. We've had her for about 2 years. She's a pretty sensitive girl and I've wondered if the howling is somehow related to her "missing" her previous home.

Rottnlove: She was spayed about two years ago (she's 5 now). She never had puppies. She was owned by a breeder, who decided not to breed her because of borderline results on her hip tests. Our bedroom is pretty big. We have an open-door crate in the bedroom, but she rarely sleeps in it. She usually sleeps in a doggie bed that is near my side of the bed, or on a small twin mattress with her sister that's at the foot of our bed. From what I gather, I don't believe howling at night is a common trait of Rotties, so I don't think you really need to worry or think about it right now.

[k&s]

this might be a crazy idea, but ..... there has been alot of human population growth in some parts of the US in the past several years. Is it possible that there are sirens more commonly sounding in the area at night than there used to be? And that this instigates the howling? One reason I mention this is that I thought I heard the faint sound of a distant siren the other night before my rottie howled.

Another possibility -- in some areas, including suburbs, coyotes are becomming more abundant. I wonder if some are vocalizing in the woods and our rotties hear it in their sleep and commence howling.

[Rottnlove]

Well, I didn't think spaying had anything to do with the howling. It is just such a strange thing for your dog to do.

K&S mentioned something about sirens and I think that might be a possiblity. I knew sirens can hurt their ears, but if you are not hearing any when she starts howling, I doubt that would be the case.

Have you mentioned this problem to your vet? It's gotta drive you crazy at night!

[k&s]

How about having your dog sleep right next to your bed so that you can nudge her awake when she howls and get her to stop, without you haviing to wake up and walk into anothr room. If mine did not also snore (which bothers hubby, not me), I'd move him next to the bed. I don't think there is much that can be done to prevent it, though.

[SC]

She didn't howl last night !! This is the first night in a long, long time that she didn't howl (and wake me up). I'm hoping this is a breakthrough.

Since Monday night, when she would start howling at night , I would give her a quick squirt with my squirt gun filled with water. She would stop howling immediately. And last night she didn't howl at all.

I'm hoping this is a permanent situation and not just a one-time aberration. I'll keep you posted.

[k&s]

I'm very interested to know if this works for you in the long run. We might give it a try.

[SC]

Just to give an update. The "squirt with water when she howls" has had pretty good success. She's only howled two or three times in the past almost two weeks, which is a heck of a lot better than every night !!!

Unfortunately, she howled again last night, but this was the first time in about 6 days. Even if she howls, one really nice thing about the squirt gun is that she stops howling IMMEDIATELY when she gets squirted. Prior to the squirt gun, I really didn't have an effective way to stop the howling once it started.

Overall, I think the jury is still out on this method, but I think the squirt gun has certainly improved things so far. I'll provide another update in a couple of weeks.

[k&s]

thanks for the update; I was wondering how things were going. Mine howled the other night upon hearng a siren, and then again a few hours later just for the heck of it. Might just have to try the squirt gun method for the non-siren related howls.

[SC]

Another update.

Over the past two weeks or so, my girl has only howled on two different nights. When she did howl, it was a quick duration, much less than full throttle, sort of half-volume howl. With no water squirt correction needed for her to stop. Basically, she sort of semi-howled and then stopped on her own. I think her last howl was 5 or 6 nights ago. Definitely a MAJOR improvement over the previous nightly howl-fest !

Based on the results to date, I guess I would recommend this method for anyone having nightly howling problems.