DEAR JOAN: Stella, our 14-year-old Havanese dog, has always been an easy dog to live with but she has recently begun barking during the middle of the night.<\/p>\n
She sleeps downstairs in the laundry room where her bed is and where she\u2019s fed. It doesn\u2019t appear that she\u2019s distressed. When we\u2019ve tried to ignore her she will settle down, however, sometimes she\u2019ll start again about three hours later.<\/p>\n
Is there something that we can do to stop this behavior?\u00a0 It\u2019s beginning to be a factor in our sleep patterns.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Denise DeLong, San Jose<\/p>\n
DEAR DENISE: If you haven\u2019t already, you should take Stella in for a check-up with her vet. There are a couple of health issues that could be causing the nighttime disturbances.<\/p>\n
As an older dog, she could be developing dementia. She wakes up and either doesn\u2019t know where she is, or doesn\u2019t know where you are. As a result, she panics and starts barking.<\/p>\n
You should also check to see if there\u2019s an outside source of noises that is waking her up and causing her to alert the family that something\u2019s not right. An animal might be prowling outside and making enough noise that Stella hears them. Even the heater coming on in the middle of the night could be waking her up.<\/p>\n
There are two schools of thought on how you should deal with a nighttime barker, but you need to know the cause to know which school to follow.<\/p>\n
If she\u2019s suffering cognitive decline and calling out for reassurance, then you might need to get up and comfort her. If she\u2019s barking because it\u2019s become a habit, then you should ignore her and not reinforce it.<\/p>\n
A vet exam might be able to tell you whether it\u2019s a decline or a habit, and then you\u2019ll know how to address it.<\/p>\n
If Stella is reaching out for comfort, you can try making her sleeping space even cozier, making sure she has a favorite stuffed toy and a blanket or item of clothing that has your scent on it. If the room where she sleeps is dark, you could add a soft nightlight to reassure her of her surroundings.<\/p>\n
You might even need to let her sleep in your bedroom so you can reassure her more easily. Spending quality time with her before bedtime, along with more playtime to tire her out, could help her sleep through the night.<\/p>\n
Your vet also can prescribe medication to ease the anxiety and help her sleep.<\/p>\n
DEAR JOAN: Perhaps you could alert the public to the danger of pyracantha to birds. A much better choice for them is toyon.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Laurie Roberts, Bay Area<\/p>\n
DEAR LAURIE: I agree that toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) is a better choice as it\u2019s a California native plant, and as a rule, growing natives is better for wildlife and the environment, not to mention the lack of brutal thorns. But pyracantha is not all bad.<\/p>\n
The berries aren\u2019t berries at all, but pomes. The main problem is if the pomes ferment, causing birds to become intoxicated and injure themselves. Toyon berries don\u2019t have the same properties.<\/p>\n
The Animal Life column runs on Mondays. Contact Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEAR JOAN: Stella, our 14-year-old Havanese dog, has always been an easy dog to live with but she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7,88,90,89,420],"class_list":["post-140288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-california","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}