Ever been jolted awake by your dog barking furiously at an empty hallway, convinced there's an intruder—only to find absolutely nothing there? You're not alone, and your dog isn't losing their mind. In this episode, Steven Whitlow draws on his experience working with hundreds of dogs to explain the nine surprising reasons your dog barks at seemingly empty spaces after dark, and more importantly, what you can actually do to fix it.

• Your dog isn't barking at "nothing"—they're detecting sensory information you literally can't perceive, including sounds up to 65,000 Hertz (compared to our 20,000) and scents picked up by their 300 million olfactory receptors versus our 6 million.

• Medical issues should always be ruled out first, especially in senior dogs; conditions like cognitive dysfunction syndrome (canine dementia) ...