I used to think my dog was barking at nothing. Then I saw a pattern: every time she did that, about 2 minutes later, I’d hear thunder in the distance. Then, about 10 minutes after that, it’d start raining.

She could hear the thunder way before I could.

Your dog is probably barking at something that they can hear, but you can’t.

Another common thing I’ve realized that my dog is barking at is other dogs that are barking way off in the distance. My dog will suddenly start barking and, between her barks, if I listen very closely, I can hear another dog barking down the street.

On the farm, we had a medium sized dog who was a very gentle soul. At three or four AM he would wake us up barking at nothing.

My father eventually figured out the pattern. Our dog wanted to warn us of danger but he did not want to expose himself to the danger.

The dog would bark facing exactly 180 degrees away from where the danger was.

When the dog woke me I would go outside and find the dog. He appeared to be barking at nothing.

I would pet and thank him for alerting us. Then I would walk to the exact opposite side of the house and look in the direction 180 degrees away from where the dog was facing.

Yep, there it was. A car sitting on the road with its lights off. Or a car with no lights on sitting next to the fuel tanks in our yard.

I would stare at them. Soon the car would slowly pull away, the lights off and the tires crunching on the gravel of the road or driveway.

Every time the dog woke us up at night, trouble was always 180 degrees on the opposite side of the house.

Damned clever solution by a damned clever dog.