Your neighbor’s dog barks at random times during the night.

You’ve again gotten jolted out of your slumber by a barking concerto in the early morning hours and can’t fall back asleep.

Lying there you wonder, “How the heck do I block this barking noise?”

One pup starts barking for good reason, but shortly thereafter other dogs in the vicinity get woken up and join in.

The quieter your neighborhood is the more these barks will stand out.

Even when sudden noises don’t wake you up, they can arouse you, i.e., take you out of deep sleep or prevent you from getting to the most restful sleep stages.

The result is that you may feel like crap even when you have had a full night’s sleep.

How loud and at what pitch do dogs bark?

Measured at a close distance (typically 1 m) dogs can bark at a sound level of 100 dBA.

At the 2012 Purina Bark in the Park in Adelaide (Australia), Charlie, a golden retriever set a new record, barking at 113.1 dB.

The previous record with 108 dB was held by a German Shephard from London.

On my recent holiday trip, a neighbor’s best friend was guarding its home:

Its barking exhibited a peak at around 600 Hz, and a second peak at 1200 Hz.

But this is just one example. The pitch of dogs’ barks varies considerably with the barking context and between different breeds.

I looked at the barks of a German Shepherd, a Rottweiler, a Yorkshire Terrier, a Chihuahua, and, of course, the unknown guard dog you have just heard.

The peak bark frequencies of these dogs varied widely.

Looking at the large size-and-head difference between, for example, a Rottweiler and a Chihuahua this is no surprise.

Taking these breeds together, I found peaks and substantial sound energy from about 260 Hz up to 3500 Hz. Growls can even be lower-pitched but generally don’t reach the high sound levels barks do.

The dots in this graph represent peaks occurring during 16 seconds of multiple dogs (of various breeds) barking.

This is how I blocked this barking noise concert

Luckily, even if it is your next-door neighbor’s dog that is doing the barking, there will normally be a distance between you and the dog(s) and walls/windows to reduce the noise to perhaps 45-50 dB.

But, against the quiet of the night these barks stand out.

In a nutshell, this is what I have found to be effective:

I tried one of my favorite pairs of foam earplugs, and they did significantly reduce the barking noise, but with the dogs barking at 45 to 50 dB, I was still able to hear the peaks, albeit quieter.

So what’s next?

White noise machines that have an adjustable pitch and can be played loud tend to work well for masking mid-frequency noises (e.g., barking) you can hear even with fitted earplugs.

In my experiment, I used the Lectrofan (my go-to white noise machine), set it to white noise #6 (they call that noise pitch “cream”), and increased the volume until the barking was gone.

Success!

Because the white noise has to be played quite loud to render the barks unnoticeable, I recommend you keep wearing foam earplugs (I used Moldex Purafit) to reduce the overall volume to a comfortable level.

Note: The Lectrofan allows you to choose between 10 different white noise pitches. The lower-pitched noises (1-5) also sound good but have less energy in the mid-frequencies important for blocking barking noise, so I would have had to set the machine even louder.

How loud to set the white noise machine?

If you get woken up by barking dogs, you could use them as a reference and set the machine volume so that the barking disappears, or at least doesn’t bother you anymore.

If the resulting overall noise level is then too loud (for me it often would be), add your foam earplugs.

I suggest you try the following approach first:

My preferred method is to opt for partial rather than complete masking:

Because I often sleep with foam earplugs anyway, I first put in my earplugs and then set the white noise volume to a comfortable but clearly noticeable level. (To people not wearing earplugs, this would appear quite loud.)

My objective is not necessarily to completely mask all noises, but to reduce the overall difference between background noise and suddenly occurring noise events.

This approach has worked well for me for barking and many other everyday noises, including traffic noise.

Experiments where white noise was deployed to mask hospital ICU noise back this up: reducing the difference between background noise and sudden noise events to below 15 dB significantly reduced the number of arousals.

What if you don’t want to use earplugs?

If you don’t want to use foam earplugs at all, start with a moderate white noise level—rather than trying to cover all barking possibly occurring during the night.

Provided the barking noise is moderate, the white noise volume may be enough so that the barks don’t arouse you anymore yet still be comfortable.

If your initial volume doesn’t work and you get woken up, you’ve got your barking reference: raise the volume (and perhaps add wax earplugs if you don’t want foam in your ear).

Use headband sleep headphones if your significant other doesn’t agree with the white noise

If you cannot or don’t want to play a white noise machine with an external speaker (e.g., your roommate is much less sensitive to barking but hates the white noise), use headband sleep headphones.

They work just as well:

Play your white noise through these headphones (I use CozyPhones and SleepPhones) and wear earplugs underneath.

As I mentioned earlier, white noise often has to be played fairly loud to mask dog barking, but I don’t want to listen to any noise at a high volume if I can help it.

I want it to sound like a faint waterfall, gentle fan, or modern air conditioner.

As mentioned earlier, I first reduce whatever may be reaching my ear drums using my favorite foam earplugs.

Then I mask the barking noise with sufficiently loud white noise played through the headphones.

As source for your white noise, I recommend myNoise, available as myNoise for iPhones/Ipads and myNoise for Android phones.

The app has a built-in equalizer which is great for optimizing the pitch.

Against dog barks, the following equalizer settings worked well for me when playing white noise through CozyPhones and wearing earplugs underneath:

As with the white noise machine, I first put in the earplugs and then raised the white noise volume to a level that was still comfortable.

What do I prefer, headband headphones or white noise machine?

Personally, at night, I prefer the white noise machine + earplug combination, provided I am not bothering anyone.

I want to have as little around my head as possible during sleep. I find this combination hassle-free, effective and comfortable.

But I don’t hesitate to use headband headphones on top of earplugs either. They can be even more effective for playing masking sounds because they are closer to your ear.

But what if you get annoyed by barking noise during the day and don’t want to use earplugs?

Will noise cancelling headphones block out dog barking?

I have tried the Sony WH-1000XM3—currently the most effective noise cancelling headphones I am aware of—with various dog breeds.

Against the lower-pitched barks coming from Rottweilers and German Shepherds, these headphones are surprisingly effective. They remove the lower registers of barking noise well, making these dogs sound much smaller and less frightening—as if they were coming from a small TV with no bass.

The higher pitched parts are also quieter, but if the dog is close, it is still going to be loud.

Against mid-pitched dogs (e.g., the dog in the sound sample) and high-pitched dogs (e.g., Chihuahuas) noise cancelling headphones are less effective. It is mainly the ear cups (rather than active noise cancellation) that reduce the barks of mid-and-high-pitched breeds.

All in all, these noise cancelling headphones make barking more bearable, so they do help, but they won’t cancel loud barking noise.

For comparison, I have also tried a few different hearing protection earmuffs.

Overall, the NRR-30 Peltor Optime 105 earmuffs (review) reduce dog barking better than current noise cancelling headphones. They are more effective in the mid-frequencies and it shows.

I have also tried the NRR-24 Worktunes Connect Bluetooth earmuffs (review) and while they clearly didn’t reduce the lower-pitched parts well as well as the Sony headphones, overall they were as effective.

The Sony headphones are more comfortable, but if you don’t want to play sound to mask barking noise, passive earmuffs with an NRR of at least 24 do do the job as well—unless it’s a Rottweiler’s barks you are trying to block. NRR-30 earmuffs outperform, but they are a bulkier.

Note: Neither earplugs nor earmuffs nor noise cancelling headphones can completely block loud barking. They can take the sting out of it, but don’t expect the barking to be gone.

If you want to improve on this, you need to again add white noise (as described above):

Together with white noise, with both the Sony headphones and the Worktunes Connect earmuffs was I able to mask most of the mid-and-higher-pitched barking noise.

In fact, I found it somewhat easier to mask barking with the economical Worktunes than with the WH-1000XM3.

The Sony headphones are more comfortable than earmuffs though, and music sounds a lot better with them.

Conclusion

Just to be clear:

At night, I definitely prefer earplugs plus white noise machine (and alternatively earplugs + headband sleep phones) over headphones and earmuffs, in particular if the dog is not in the same room.

This combination is effective and a lot more comfy for sleep than over-the-ear headphones.

So here you have it.

Shall we move on to brown bears’ roaring or do you have other ideas?

Please let me know in the comments.

Notes: