Your 14 month old Great Pyrenees spent the first year sleeping through the night indoors. Now they want the garden at 11pm, and they bark at intervals until 5am.
You call, they look at you and carry on patrolling. The neighbours have started to mention it, and you are running out of sleep.
Why this starts now
Livestock guardian breeds were selected to work alone, at night, at a distance from people, and to announce anything that changed. Barking is the tool, not a malfunction.
The behaviour matures late. Many guardian breeds are still growing past 18 months old, and the patrolling and announcing typically arrive in the second year rather than in puppyhood.
Adolescence sits on top of it. Around the onset of the stage dogs respond less to the cues of the person who raised them, and that responsiveness returns later. A guardian breed at 14 months old is doing a job you did not set.
The barking is also self-paying. Something rustles, your dog barks, the thing stops, and the bark worked. That loop runs all night without you.
The honest version of what is possible
You are not going to train a guardian breed out of announcing. What you can change is how much of the night they are outside, how much there is to announce, and what happens when they bark.
Behaviour change is built from management plus reinforcement together. With this breed and this problem, management is doing most of the work and there is no shame in that.
Manage the night
Bring your dog in before the barking starts, not after. For most households that means indoors from dusk, every night, as a fixed routine.
Do not open the door to a barking dog, and do not let them out again to settle it. Both teach your dog that barking opens doors.
Feed the last meal indoors. Give a chew or a stuffed frozen toy on a bed, in the room where you want them to sleep.
Give a long sniffing walk or a scatter feed in the evening. A dog who has used their nose settles more easily than one who has only used their legs.
Reduce what there is to announce: close curtains, turn off security lights that trigger on cats, and block the view of the gate and the road.
Use white noise or a fan to blunt the sounds from outside. A guardian breed hears the fox 3 gardens away.
Never leave a guardian breed loose in the garden overnight and hope. That is how a dog ends up over the fence or in front of a car.
Teach coming in, instead of fighting about it
Stop calling when you already know you will not get an answer. An unanswered call spends the cue for nothing. Walk out and go and get your dog.
Pay coming in every single time, with something worth crossing a dark garden for. Roast chicken, cheese, sardine. Dry biscuit does not compete with a patrol.
Practise it 10 times a day in daylight, at the easy end, before you need it at midnight.
Do not call them in only to shut the door on them for 8 hours. Call, pay, and sometimes let them straight back out during the day.
Go out and get them calmly if they do not come. Chasing a guardian breed round a garden is a game they will win.
Reward-based training is associated with higher reported responsiveness and fewer reported problem behaviours.
Give the job somewhere to go in the daytime
Let the patrolling happen in daylight, in a securely fenced space, where the barking costs you less.
Use slow, low-impact activity rather than fast repetitive games. These are heavy, late-maturing dogs and their joints are still developing.
Do nose work and food searching indoors on the days the weather is against you. A searching dog finishes settled.
Build a settle on purpose. Relaxation is trained as a behaviour in its own right, in short repeatable sets below your dog's threshold.
Teach a quiet routine rather than a quiet argument: when your dog barks indoors, go and look with them, then call them away and pay the coming away.
The neighbours
Talk to them before they have to talk to you. Tell them what you are doing and roughly how long you think it will take.
Keep a simple log of the times it happens. It tells you whether anything is working, and it is what a professional will ask for.
Do not reach for a bark collar or an anti-bark box. A review of aversive methods found them associated with worse welfare outcomes and no training advantage, and punishing an alarm bark adds fear to it.
Safety note
Book a veterinary examination if the night barking or the restlessness started suddenly. Sudden behaviour change warrants one, and pain frequently presents as a change in behaviour rather than as obvious lameness. A large, fast-growing adolescent who is pacing at night can be sore rather than vigilant. Get help now if your dog has growled at, snapped at or bitten a person. The same applies if they threaten people at the fence line. Guardian breeds are big, and that combination needs a qualified behaviour professional who works with reward-based methods, not more management. Reward-based methods are what the veterinary behaviour guidance recommends. Tell your veterinarian too if your dog cannot be left, or is distressed rather than watchful, when indoors at night.
What to expect
Owners of guardian breeds usually describe months, and a dog who still announces and does it indoors at a volume the street can live with. Many of these dogs sleep in the house for life, and that is a sensible arrangement rather than a failure.
Nobody can promise you a silent Pyrenees. An indoor night, less to announce and a paid recall to the back door are what get closest.
If the barking is one of several adolescent things at once, the Assessment will name the pattern underneath. It is free, takes about 3 minutes, and asks for no email address.
Today's version, in one line: indoors from dusk tonight, a chew on a bed, and 10 paid recalls to the back door in daylight tomorrow.