Things that go GRRR in the night..!

Lunatic59 said:
Maybe he's simply afraid of the dark.
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You know, this is a good thought. Maybe put a nightlight in the room for a few nights. Is there possibly an outlet behind the crates? Since you cover the fronts, a nightlight in front of the crates wouldn't help, but behind them might help. Try that for a few nights and see.

I feel like you're focusing a little excessively on WHO is doing the growling instead of how to prevent it. Not saying this in a critical way, just my observation is, you'll get better results by working towards decreasing the behavior than who is doing it. No matter who it is, it needs to stop (hopefully).

Also, the growler might just need not to be crated as trini suggests. In that case, you DO need to prove who the growler is. With our new puppy, we have animals sleeping literally all over the house with baby gates and closed doors and omg it's a major pain in the bum but we've solved some skirmishes that way (the pup likes to chase one of our cats & BARK at it at night, the elder male Sheltie likes the sofa, but the pup will pee on the rug out there so it's blocked off, etc etc). Now that we have a system worked out it's not as big a hassle as it was and everybody knows their place and feels safe so nights are better all around.

One more thing, once you're sure who it is, would you consider giving that dog a kong or something with a tablespoon of peanut butter rubbed inside it to gnaw out his aggression on? That might distract him from the crabbiness. You'll have to give the other something also or separate the crates, jealousy will be an issue.
 
Thanks for all your replies everyone. I'm still trying to work out how to share the webcam footage - at the moment I have a clip but it has no sound when I pull it off which isn't very helpful.

Well last night, I left the crates uncovered at the front and put the webcam up on a chair so I could see both dogs, but it wasn't at eye level so not likely to disturb.

Put them to bed as normal except for pulling down the towels over the front and waited. They ate their biscuits and Angus laid down peacefully in the middle of his cage. Epic on the other hand didn't settle, for about 30 secs he turned around, stopped, looked out the front and then suddenly ...the snarl. NOT at Angus - but at something out to the front of the crate. Angus predictably jumped up startled. Then he settled down again while Epic began the growling. Again out to the front right corner of the crate, not in Angus' direction at all. His (Epic's) muzzle was through the bars and he seemed fixated on something out in the room.

I think that when this first happened, Angus understandably reacted to Epic's snarl but now it's happened a few times he's getting used to it, but this really doesn't seem to be an issue between the two dogs but something that is suddenly bothering Epic when he first goes to bed.

Nothing at all has changed in the room, the routine or anything that I can think of, so why he is suddenly having this weird ritual I've no idea. One thing that possibly suggests itself to me is the worrying thought that there may be a problem with his eyesight, and the light going off is causing a vision issue.
I know 'night blindness' is an early symptom of PRA - but I just conducted an unscientific test of turning out all the lights and having him recall around tables and things and as far as I could tell (as I couldn't see either!) he had no problems at all. Also I would have thought if he was 'seeing things' then this wouldn't happen with the covers pulled down :confused2:


So I'm further forward in that I know what is happening, but why is still a mystery. Standing in the dark watching it all playing out on the webcam it really does make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up...it is quite unnerving. :eek2:

Tonight's experiment is to leave the light on low....to be continued...
 
Shadows. Something is moving outside a window and casting a shadow he does not like. One thing that comes to mind is the trees have likely lost leaves up there.
 
I've noticed that Spirit sometimes go nuts barking at something (no idea what) outside my bedroom window at night. I found that closing the blinds in the opposite direction helped stop that.
 
Maybe someone is HEARING a noise that starts once the lights go off? Like a mouse or something that gets braver once it knows the coast is clear?
 
The growler revealed!

Well last night there were some answers and yet more questions. I popped the boys in their crates and put the towels down but left the lights on low. Once again the same scenario played out! I went over to the crates and the growling was definitely coming from Angus' crate. I pulled up the towel and there he was, laying neatly in the middle of his crate, lips pulled up, growling...and he did not stop. I looked at him, he was looking at me. The growing continued. He wasn't growling at me, he apparently wasn't growling at Epic. He was just...growling. It was so, so odd. He didn't seem tense or anxious, his eyes were no wider than normal, no different expression. He just laid there growling.

I feel really guilty now that I blamed Epic, but the infrared camera isn't that clear and Epic's body language suggested he was the instigator. Plus Epic is the naughty one. I still don't know who starts this off but oddly I do feel slightly happier that it is Angus and not Epic growling. He is at a 'funny age' and so less surprising if new behaviours appear, but on the whole, Angus is a gentle fellow so this is strange.

When I feed them, twice a day, they are also crated and given food and yet this doesn't happen then. I honestly can't see or hear anything out of the ordinary and it's so odd that this exact same pattern of behaviour is being repeated. I'm just hoping it might stop as suddenly as it started. Now I know that it happens with the lights on, I will have a go at filming this on the camera so I can share!
 
Julia, this may be way off base, but have you considered psychomotor seizure activity? Dogs who have this form of seizure can hallucinate...seeing things that are not present and reacting in some cases with fear or fear aggression. We had a rescue dog who would, always at night , stand and stare at a corner of our bedroom...he acted afraid of something the he obviously believed was there. This was finally dx'd in him as seizure activity. It didn't interfere with his life...he was happy and totally normal except for this strange behavior

Trini
 
trini said:
Julia, this may be way off base, but have you considered psychomotor seizure activity? Dogs who have this form of seizure can hallucinate...seeing things that are not present and reacting in some cases with fear or fear aggression. We had a rescue dog who would, always at night , stand and stare at a corner of our bedroom...he acted afraid of something the he obviously believed was there. This was finally dx'd in him as seizure activity. It didn't interfere with his life...he was happy and totally normal except for this strange behavior

Trini
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As soon as I read the post about him growling but not at you I thought of psychomotor seizures as well. It's worth checking out.
 
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