Night Dog Syndrome

Dogs who are kept outside in a yard at night can have a tendency to develop Night Dog Syndrome aka Vampire Dog Syndrome. This results when for reasons such as inadequate bedding, insufficient daily exercise from the owner to tire the animal, disturbance by other nocturnal animals or it being too cold or too noisy at night. The animal is unable to sleep through the night and its sleeping pattern is reversed from normal to that of a night shift worker. The canine can often be witnessed displaying the greatest levels of its daily energy quota after midnight, in the early hours of the morning, often seen leaping and prancing around the the yard, hunting, barking and guarding and/or bolting up and down the the fence line with great vigor. The animal will have more of a tendency towards delinquency including ignoring basic commands and destroying anything that it can get its teeth around during times of boredom. Contributing to the condition is the fact that the animal is forced to sleep during the day in direct or indirect sunlight which disturbs the natural melatonin cycle. The skills and motor patterns of these animals may become irregular and can often degrade to bizarre and down right frightening, the stuff from horror movies folks, as the animal slips further into the vicious cycle of NDS.

Ralph the dog developed Night Dog Syndrome due the presence of nocturnal possums in the trees of the yard where he was kept at night. The owners eventually put down the animal ahead of his time due to his bizarre and unruly behavior. They were ignorant and unaware of his condition.