George (9 months) loves his crate and will often go in for a nap by himself. We put him in when we are home, sometimes, and if we both have to go out at the same time. According to our neighbours he has never made even a peep. Last evening we were a bit late getting home - he was only alone for 3 hours, but we got home 20 minutes later than his usual dinner time. Anyway, we got a text from the neighbours that apparently he had been barking like mad for the last half hour or so. Definitely out of character for him - could something have spooked him? Or was he just mad about his late dinner? He's definitely in the middle of a teenager / testing boundaries phase, so maybe this is just part of it. Or it was just a one-time thing. I'm hesitant to 'wait and see', though, and maybe have it turn into a habit. (There's a 3-month old baby upstairs so this can't turn into a habit!). Any tips for us for going forward?
I bet the baby screams. Tell them the baby woke the dog * I'd go back a few steps and leave him for shorter periods, building it back up. Don't always make it progressively longer, mix it up so sometimes you're only gone a few minutes. * I'm only half joking. Babies make a hell of a racket, yet people are so much more tolerant of that than a young dog making noise. Harrumph.
Behaviourine diesn'the suddenly change without cause so I would be looking at what was different on that day as you being a little layer than normal isn't really enough of an explanation as dogs just don't think 'Mum's late in for my dinner so I'm going to bark'.
