noise complaint after a bad night of barking :(

[Apartment Dwelling Doodles]

Duke had a bad night Monday night - we had been away for 3 nights and he didn't sleep in his crate, and slept the whole 3.5 hour drive home Monday afternoon.  Monday night, he wasn't tired, and he certainly didn't want to be in his crate.  He barked off and on for 4 hours until I finally took him out and put him in the bathroom - didn't hear a peep all night.  Wednesday night he slept fine in his crate, totally silent.  We keep the crate in our bedroom and have from day one, so we are closeby and can hear everything.  Yesterday the complaint letter came in the mail from our apartment office.  It has to be from our downstairs neighbors because they complained of nighttime barking, and loud stomping - NO idea what the stomping is about, we were in no way doing any of that.  We don't know these people, but we know who they are - they also have a dog so we see them outside. 

 

Last night, Duke started barking a little here and there, so I laid down next to the crate and talked to him for a bit and fell asleep with my hand on the crate. I woke up 30 min later and got back in bed.  5 min later the barking started again. I laid back down and he still barked off and on for about 10 min so I took him out.  He hopped up on the bed and was quiet.  I was unhappy to have him on the bed because I don't want him sleeping with us, and taking him out of the crate means he wins, but didn't know what else to do. I felt bad putting him inthe bathroom again, and freaked out by the noise complaint. 

 

How do I get him to stop barking?  He is 17 weeks - is this some sort of 4 month funk he is going through???  We are exhausted!

[Tina]

I would say if he's happy and quiet in the bathroom, then keep him there. Maybe it's the cooler floor in tw bathroom. I would suggest talking to the neighbors and letting them know he's a puppy and ask if they could be patient. I live on the second floor too and that's what I did with all of my neighbors and they seemed fine with it. We went weeks with Roger crying. I work nights so I'm sure he cried the nights I was gone too. It was basically a let me try here, no here ad finally here, you're happy. LOL I just asked them to be patient With us and let me know first if there was a problem especially when I was at work. They seemed very understanding. Both my neighbors have dogs so I suppose that helped. Oh and the one thing I didn't do was ever take him out while he was crying no matter how bad it got. I waited until he stopped. I never gave in even though at times, I wanted to just for my sanity.