Have you ever caught your dog barking at nothing in the backyard?

My dogs bark at cars, people, and sometimes airplanes. But recently I have noticed that one of them just likes to bark at air. I have peaked around the corner a few times and I have noticed that he likes to look up in the air and bark. This generally sets the other four dogs off and then there is a crescendo of barking. I really hate it when the howling starts. Well, I always pull the dogs inside and put them in their day crates. They love it in their crates so, I guess, I reward them for being noisy. But, I don't know what else to do because yelling "Shut up," doesn't work--I learned that lesson years ago.

I haven't heard of my dogs doing that yet, however my rotweiler has a tendency to bark at airplanes and sometimes she does try to run after it. I think that she thinks it's a great big toy that's just floating right above her head. However, my other dog did bark at himself when he was a puppy, it was at his reflection. It was so funny, he just couldn't understand that it was himself.

I believe the dogs are actually always barking at something even when you think there is nothing. They have much better hearing than humans. They can hear sound frequency out of the range of our human ears. When you saw nothing or heard nothing, it didn't mean there was nothing the dogs could hear or see.

I agree when you reward them for barking, it will encouraging them barking more often. If you do not wish them to bark at "nothing", reward them is the last thing you want to do at that moment lol.

I've always caught my sister's Pomeranian barking in the backyard.
I go out there to see what he won't start barking at. I guess he gets irritated with leaves. Every time a leaf flies around he'll bark at it and try to catch it in his mouth. He is only 2.5 pounds, all black except for a white stripe on his chest, & very shy (except to the leaves LOL). He seems to think he's bigger than he actually is. He's get right in Caesar, my Pit Bull's face. Thank goodness, Caesar is very friendly & sweet. He just ignores him. The Pomeranian, Lui has always been really weird. I do believe in ghosts & spirits, and all that...so who knows...maybe he sees something we don't. Like Ram said, perhaps he hears things we don't as well.

My little Terrier thinks that she is a guard dog, and whenever people walked down the street, she thought that she should bark at them. I would go to the back door and scold her, but soon, she would be right back barking at something again.
I ended up usually bringing her inside just before the neighborhood kids would be coming home from school, so she was not out there to bark at them.
Then, i was looking on Amazon, and I found a device that is suposed to stop a dog from attacking you, and also works as a training device. It is battery operated, and when you press the button, it gives out an ultrasonic beep that the dog can hear, and people can't.
So, I ordered one, and tried that the next time she barked. I said "quiet!" and pushed the button. Tootsie stopped barking, and put her ears down. Pretty soon she tried another bark, so i repeated the procedure, but holding the button a couple of seconds this time. She flattened down her little ears, turned around and ran to the garage, and didn't bark after that. It worked beautifully ! !
She rarely barks when people walk down the road now, but I keep the beeper in the kitchen window just in case she needs a reminder.