Growling at bedtime

[Harry_mtb]

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Hello all, we have a border collie named Jess, and she's reasonably well behaved, but when we go to bed she makes a beeline my work bag and growls and barks at it untill we go past and up the stairs. Sometimes she'll follow us upstairs with a smile on her face. It doesn't matter what time we go to bed or how long it has been since i took her out for her last walk. It's got me confused. Does anyone have any ideas as to why she does this?

Cheers for any help.

Regards.

Harry

 

[JoanneF]

Sometimes they do the strangest things and we have no idea why. I remember reading about a dog who was asleep under a coffee table, woke up and banged his head against the table. For some reason he "blamed" the ceiling fan and whenever he went into that room he growled at the fan.

Is there something in the bag? Does your dog associate it with a negative like being left alone?

TBH if it is bothering her, I would just move it to a place she can't see it.

 

[Harry_mtb]

Hi Joanne, thanks for the reply. i have moved the bag and it makes no difference. If i hang it on the banister, she growls at it and if i put it in a cupboard she growls in the corner where it was. Even if we are in the living room and i say to my wife it's time for bed she runs and growls either at the bag or the corner.

I've also tried to see if she wants to go out again but she is not interested.

Harry

 

[gypsysmum2]

How strange!

Can you cast your mind back to when it first started? This is often the clue. Perhaps the bag fell over just as you left the room (of course you would not know this). She may be "warning" the bag not to move again? If she growled at it and it did not move again then she would think that her growling is what caused the bag to stay still. Collies do like to control things.

It is quite common for dogs to make weird associations between things. If we pay lots of attention to the behaviour we can fix it. It is how we train them to do the good things, by paying attention to them.

I would do your best to remove the bag from her awareness and then just ignore her behaviour. Try to make your bedtime as routine and relaxing as possible for her so that she does not see the need to control things.