How to sleep thru dogs barking.

FOG2

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My Girl has a small and a medium sized dog, who she did not and will not punish for barking.
Any advice on ear plugs, noise generators, or anything else that can help me sleep through the night ?
 
Let me elaborate .... her dogs can distinguish between her being alone and you guys being together, and change their behavior, depending on the situation.

If I were you, and if she let's you, I'd use a combination of positive and negative re-enforcement. Just saying loud "No" and ignoring them when they bark, and cookies when they don't, for instance. She has to help you of course, not be nice to them when you ignore them .... we also use electrical collars in our house, they can be adjusted to a very mellow settings. If she is worried about something like this, you can demonstrate the use on yourself :) Our dogs only bark if they are really upset or to warn us. Actually only 2 of the 3 do, #3 is 6 years now and I have only heard her bark 3 times in her life.

Roland.
 
I had to wear ear plugs for a month while working out of town with a guy who snored like a bear. It kept me from killing him.
Those rain and thunder apps might work for you.
Some times music will calm dogs.
 
I can't sleep wearing ear plugs and can't advise you there. I've read that some are measurably more effective than others.

LectroFan EVO is a white noise machine that works for me. It makes two noises: fan noise, like an air conditioner or refrigerator, and "white noise" like a radio tuned between stations. You can raise or lower the volume and raise or lower the pitch to find something effective that you can tolerate. Try tuning a radio between stations before buying this. I bought mine on sale and there seem to be regular sales online.

myNoise is a white noise app for Apple and Android phones. The free version makes fan noise and white noise in a range of pitches. The developer says it is optimized for use with Bluetooth earbuds but it works with Bluetooth speakers. I didn't test it extensively because I can't sleep with things stuck in my ears, but it sounds very much like the LectroFan EVO and it's obviously cheaper if you already own Bluetooth earbuds or speakers. $10 for the pro version gets you hundreds of sounds, babbling brooks, rain, The Wind in the Willows etc.

Some dogs always bark and can't be trained not to bark. It's like training a bloodhound not to sniff. Chihuahuas will always bark. Keeshonds are the Olympic gold medalists of barking. Short nosed dogs like pugs and bulldogs snore. Snoring is worse than barking, they don't bark in their sleep. Mostly they don't.

Keeshond barking:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UREV0R9z1S4
 
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There’s bark collars that spray an odor that’s supposed to be unpleasant to dogs, some vibrate, and some emit a high pitch frequency. I’ve never used them, so I can’t say how effective they are.
 
A quality noise machine and EAR Classic plugs will cancel out just about anything without being annoying. This noise machine is a charm.

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I wore E.A.R. ear plugs for decades at work and at home when working 2nd or 3rd shift. They do good at "doubling up" with over the ear electronic hearing protection when shooting, too.
 
So far it seems noise generators, possibly coupled with ear plugs of some type, may be the best I can do.
I ain't changing girls and can't beat the dawgs so those are out.
 
Some people fall asleep while listening to music. Personally I can't but It's purely idiosyncratic. If you can, a good radio is more generally useful than a white noise box.

It might help if you could figure out why the dogs are barking. Some dogs bark whenever strangers approach. That is called guarding the home. Not much you can do about that. They think they're earning their dog food, and if you punish them for their good deeds it makes them crazy. My last dog was a Greyhound and they rarely bark. She would poke me with her nose for her morning walk when I overslept, and if it was really urgent she would bark me out of bed. If they bark because they want something, that's easy to deal with. Mostly easy. I'm assuming you've made the dogs your friends by feeding them and taking them for a walk. That always breaks the ice.
 
My dogs bark at night if there's a racoon on the porch. They also bark if a stranger pulls into the driveway or is in front of the house. They have a different happy bark if they know who it is.

Punishment or negative reinforcement is not an effective training method.

Human beings have trained dogs to bark to alert the pack/camp of danger for 11 000 years.
 
I had to wear ear plugs for a month while working out of town with a guy who snored like a bear. It kept me from killing him.
Those rain and thunder apps might work for you.
Some times music will calm dogs.

I had to laugh when I read this. I had a friend (passed away) that asked me to go out of state to help pick up an ATV that he got at a big discount. I didn't bring ear plugs because we thought we would make it back and wouldn't need to spend the night away. The snow cramped our plans, and he paid for a hotel room for us and his dog.

Apparently he liked to sleep with the temperature close to 80, he snored the entire night, and in between his snoring, his dog would scratch the carpet when it was asleep. Snore... scratch-scratch-scratch... snore... scratch-scratch-scratch... the entire night. I couldn't sleep a wink. Luckily I wasn't the one driving.

This is one of the reasons I don't share rooms with friends on trips... although it also means I have to go for a cheaper hotel/motel.

To the OP... I've used foam ear plugs picked up in bulk at the hardware store (they're more expensive at the drug store, but might be better if you just want to get a pair or two) for sleeping under certain situations, i.e. when I lived in downtown Milwaukee through two Harley Fests, sleeping on the airplane or train, etc. However, even though the sound is significantly muted, it's the stopping and starting of the sound that can keep you up... although lawnmowers can keep me up too when I work through the night.

Maybe taking the dogs for a long walk before going to sleep might drain some of the energy out of them, too.
 
I had to laugh when I read this. I had a friend (passed away) that asked me to go out of state to help pick up an ATV that he got at a big discount. I didn't bring ear plugs because we thought we would make it back and wouldn't need to spend the night away. The snow cramped our plans, and he paid for a hotel room for us and his dog.

Apparently he liked to sleep with the temperature close to 80, he snored the entire night, and in between his snoring, his dog would scratch the carpet when it was asleep. Snore... scratch-scratch-scratch... snore... scratch-scratch-scratch... the entire night. I couldn't sleep a wink. Luckily I wasn't the one driving.

This is one of the reasons I don't share rooms with friends on trips... although it also means I have to go for a cheaper hotel/motel.

To the OP... I've used foam ear plugs picked up in bulk at the hardware store (they're more expensive at the drug store, but might be better if you just want to get a pair or two) for sleeping under certain situations, i.e. when I lived in downtown Milwaukee through two Harley Fests, sleeping on the airplane or train, etc. However, even though the sound is significantly muted, it's the stopping and starting of the sound that can keep you up... although lawnmowers can keep me up too when I work through the night.

Maybe taking the dogs for a long walk before going to sleep might drain some of the energy out of them, too.
The solution for that is to be the guy that snores and make sure you fall asleep first.
 
Human beings have trained dogs to bark to alert the pack/camp of danger for 11 000 years.

All domestic dogs are descended from six female wolves of an extinct wolf species. We are reasonably certain — remember this is paleontology, no direct observation — that domestication first occurred in Siberia not less that 23 thousand years ago. How much more than 23 thousand is under debate. We may have inherited dogs from earlier hominids, Neanderthals or Denisovans.

Dogs are social animals and barking to alert the pack is their instinctive social behavior. They are intelligent animals and capable of learning, but instinctive behavior always trumps learned behavior.

Cats were domesticated after the invention of agriculture, 11 or 12 thousand years ago. They are descended from the African wildcat (Felis lybica) which still exists in the wild. They are not social animals and may seem less domesticated than dogs, but they are well adapted to life with us.
 
Steady/static noise isn’t a problem when sleeping (I remember my friend who had sleeping problems used to put some bomber plane engine clips on for the night lol). The problem is the interruptive sudden loud noises that wake you up. But even so you can learn to ignore little bit of dog barking (but I would advise not too much, since it can be actual warning too).
 
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