Cesar going ballistic at night...
 

The last few nights Cesar has been going ballistic starting around 9 or 10 and it goes on all night long. He will run the entire house, into the bedroom with a sliding door-wall and to the living room, around the kitchen, back down the hallway and back into the bedroom just crying/moaning and barking. He will not stop and the first night it went on the entire night and he kept everyone up.

Last night I just grabbed him and held him down to my chest and didn't let him run and he just moaned and his heart was beating a mile a minute. Eventually he calmed down and just passed out, and then I just laid him next to me and he slept all night.

We have a deck in the back and he will run outside, and run all along the fence and to the deck and just bark like there is something there, but I looked and there's nothing there. Also, we have snow on the ground and there are no prints from mice/rats/raccoon, possum, nothing, just his little paw prints.

He does it every night and it's getting to be a problem as everybody has to get up for work early. Last night it took an hour for him to calm down on my chest and I don't want to do that every night.

I don't know if it's a lack of exercise, as he hasn't had a walk in about 2-3 weeks since we had a nice day. I don't know if anybody knows but here in MI we have had the coldest winter with the most snow and I just haven't had it in me to take him for a walk as it is very cold and I know for a little guy like him it will be too cold. In the spring/summer he gets two very long walks each day so he's usually passing out by 9 or 10 and now he is nonstop at that time.

We have the same thing going on with Scarlett. 10 pm is the witching hour. She barks, growls and paces for at least an hour. We aren't sure what is setting her off. What has helped a little bit was having a really vigorous play session around 9 o'clock. Good luck, I hope you get some sleep soon.

Max used to have zoomies in the evening and then he would throw a little tantrum and attack his bed because he didn't want the day to end. :p Exercise during the day definitely would help. Since you cannot go walking, try vigorous games of fetch indoors We play "keep away" with 2 people throwing the toy back and forth and the dogs chase it. Be prepared for the body slams! :D

welcome to the Zoomie phase! Harley does this when he has free run of the house in the evenings. the bf tries to run him out in the afternoon and get the zoomies out of his system so that he goes to bed earlier.

Definitely exercise exercise exercise. A tired dog is a happy dog. Jackson never has gone "crazy" with zoomies at night but he will drive me crazy all evening if under exercised. He gets extra whiny and bored. He needs at LEAST an hour walk per day. On top of that, we do fetch in our front yard for about 10 minutes, then playing with toys indoors for 10-20 minutes then trick training once a day for 10 minutes minimum. If he doesn't get a walk, we do the dog park for a few hours and every weekend we visit my dads house with fenced in yard and their two dogs. I'm pretty sure he'd drive me nuts if he was in the house w/o any outdoor activity for longer than, like, 3 days. On a few of our bad winter storm days, luckily he's pretty content to chill around the house on days like that but I play fetch up/down the stairs so it wears him out more!

This is what Cesar is doing as well. He has his case of the zoomies where he'll run rampant and kill his toys and just run around like a madman, but this is different, like he is after something.

I kept him up today and didn't let him nap too much and took him out with me while I did a few things outside earlier. He is not an outdoor dog so once he does his business he comes right back in, which I think I kind of did to him because I would never let him stay outside where I cant see him for fear of a big bird, cat, or anything else getting him.

He is tuckered out and sleeping now. Hopefully that behavior doesn't spring up in the middle of the night.