Why Does My Dog Bark at Night? Why Do Dogs Sometimes Bark at the Air? | Learn More

Those who keep dogs at home believe that they have encountered this situation, that is, sometimes dogs keep barking at the air, as if they are barking at something, but you can’t find out what they are barking at after searching carefully for a long time.

It’s okay during the day, but when you are alone at night, it will make people feel scared when it barks at a corner of the wall. I always feel that the dog has seen something unclean, something that people can’t see.

Although it is said that people are atheists now, if dogs always do this, it is also quite scary.

Why do dogs sometimes bark at the air? Did they see something unclean?

Some timid people will regard this behavior of dogs as seeing ghosts or other supernatural events.

Of course, we are not dogs and cannot know accurately whether it is a ghost or not. But as a young man of the new era, King Cat tried to look at why dogs bark at the air from a scientific point of view.

In fact, I personally think that this is mainly caused by the different sensory organs of humans and dogs.

For humans, we contact the world through the five senses. Seeing things with our eyes is the most intuitive. Seeing is believing, so we get most of the information. The second most important thing should be the ears, which can hear the sounds of the world, but the sounds are sometimes quite unreliable. The third most important thing should be the nose, which can smell all kinds of smells, which is even more unreliable. Another one is the sense of touch, but you can only feel it when you touch it.

Why do dogs sometimes bark at the air somewhere? 

For humans, the vision of the eyes is still the most important. You must see it with your eyes to believe it. What you hear and smell are not very reliable.

For dogs, their senses are not exactly the same as ours. For them, the sense of smell of the nose is the most important.

According to scientists, dogs have 40 to 100 times more olfactory cells than humans, and their olfactory sensitivity is 1 million times that of humans.

That means dogs are extremely sensitive to smells, and it is said that they can reach the molecular level, that is, as long as there are a few molecules of a certain substance in the air, dogs can distinguish it.

Of course, I haven’t studied this in depth, and I don’t know if it is true, but it is true that it is many times stronger than human sense of smell.

For example, here are two cups of water, which seem to be exactly the same, but a few grains of salt are added to one of them. For us humans, we can’t see the difference by looking at it, and we may not be able to taste it by tasting it, but for dogs with a keen sense of smell, they can distinguish the difference between the two cups of water just by smelling it.

Why do dogs sometimes bark at the air? What did they see?

Dogs are not only good at smelling, but also at hearing sounds that are different from humans.

Human ears can hear sounds in the range of 1000Hz to 4000Hz, but what about dogs? It is said that they can hear sounds within 50,000Hz, which is amazing. Many times when we feel that there is no sound, the dog may have heard something.

So, through the above introduction, I believe everyone will understand that the pet dog that looks silly at our feet can smell what we can’t smell and hear sounds that we can’t hear, just like a superman with superpowers.

Although dogs’ eyesight and color discrimination ability are not as good as humans, the world they perceive is not worse than humans, and is even richer.

So many times, we think that dogs are barking at the air, but in fact, maybe the dog is barking at a mouse, or at a delicious food on a ribbon somewhere, but we can’t perceive it.

Reasons why dogs bark at night

Dogs are social animals. When they lived in the wild, they were highly alert for a long time. When they heard any movement, they would inform other dogs by barking, reminding everyone to be alert. And dogs have very sensitive hearing. They can hear clearly any slight movement outside.

In the dead of night, dogs’ hearing and smell will be more sensitive. Whenever there is a slight sound or a stranger passing by, dogs will habitually bark to notify other dogs. In addition, dogs will convey messages through barking, so when a dog barks, nearby dogs will follow suit.

In addition, when a dog feels bored, hungry, wants to go to the toilet, or feels uncomfortable, and finds that he can’t find his owner, he will also call his owner by barking.

If you are next to the dog at this time, you can make some noise. Or after it calms down, take out its favorite toys or snacks to distract its attention, and the dog will stop. Because dogs are sometimes like human babies, if you give them a pacifier when they cry, they will naturally calm down.

It should be noted that if you want to stop a dog from barking, yelling at it will not work and will have the opposite effect. Because this may make the dog mistakenly think that you also think the noise outside is dangerous. If you yell at it, it will only get more excited. The owner can use gestures or a serious and firm tone to stop the dog. When they are silent, give them some small snacks as rewards and praise them at the same time. Over time, they will not bark easily.

It is also a good idea to let dogs exercise more and consume their energy. Therefore, the owner should take the dog out for a walk every day, which can not only consume their excess energy, but also allow the dog to “pick up girls” and sniff around more to keep his mind active. If the owner is busy at work, you can also consider playing games with the dog at home at night. When the dog is tired, it will naturally sleep to replenish its energy!

Sometimes dogs bark to attract the attention of the owner. If you want it to stop barking, the owner can turn around and do other things to ignore it deliberately. The bored dog will calm down, and it can also let it know that barking cannot win the owner’s attention.

As mentioned above, dogs bark in the middle of the night because of physiological needs. Owners can prepare appropriate amounts of “midnight snacks” and more toys for them before going to bed to attract their attention. Some dogs may bark because of separation anxiety and may even keep banging the door. If this is the case, owners can put old clothes with their own smell in the dog’s nest to relieve their separation anxiety.

If you want to sleep well at night, then get these methods! Share them with your neighbors who have dogs around you so that everyone can sleep well at night with their dogs.