Long post ahead, but looking for any ideas here.
We have a 4 year old husky/little bit of everything mix who barks every day from 3-5pm when I'm out of town and my wife is at work. We recently found this out since we got a camera, but confirmed with our neighbor that it's been going on for a while.
He used to normally be kenneled during the day as we had another dog and they couldn't be alone together, but would get stressed being in separate parts of the house. Since she passed away, we've been leaving him out in our bedroom. He is always kenneled to sleep. He can be aggressive at night, especially if he gets pushed/moved while he's sleepy/sleeping. We don't have a ton of space and have 2 cats, so it's the safest sleeping situation we can manage. He's currently kenneled from 9pm-6am.
When we leave for work he's fine and seems to lounge around all day until about 3pm. From there he will basically constantly bark/howl until someone gets home. Sometimes he's pacing, sometimes he goes lay in his kennel, sometimes he's just laid out on the bed. It occasionally starts earlier. When I work from home, he'll get started around this time, but once I correct him he stops. Correcting over the camera doesn't have the same effect.
He likes to bark when we're home--at things out the window, when we're a couple minutes late on dinner, when he's playing, etc. but not like this. He's pretty easy to get to settle down in these situations.
Things we've tried:
* Kenneling during the day. He seems to stay settled longer, but I feel horrible that he's basically in the kennel all day and all night.
* Day care. He used to be in day care, but stopped at the advice of our trainer. He did okish with the other dogs, but was noticeably more anxious and resource guarding got worse at home. Our trainer thought it was too over stimulating for him and not a good fit.
* Having someone drop in. We had someone come today around lunch time to let him out, play, and get some attention for about half an hour. He never really settled down after she left and barked off and on from 1-3 where it started nonstop.
* Toys. He's not big on toys, he doesn't really play with them if we leave them out. The stuff he gets engaged in are things he can destroy, which he can't have alone because he'll swallow pieces.
Ideas we have:
* Keep trying with a drop in at lunch time. I'm hoping the novelty can wear off and get him through the second half of the day.
* Getting a doggy door. Our property backs up to a wetland. I'm worried about snakes and cane toads. We haven't seen any venomous snakes on our property, but we do occasionally get cane toads in our fence. I know they're mostly out at night, but they burrow and he likes to dig. Also, potential that he just goes outside to bark and bothers the whole neighborhood. He's not dying to go outside or anything when we get home, but he loves to lay in the yard, sniff, and watch the birds. I'm wondering if it could give him enough stimulation to make it the last couple of hours.
* Bark collar. He has a dogtra e-collar, when I'm home this is sometimes a part of the correction. I see they also make a bark collar. He was professionally trained on his current collar, and it is always used with a verbal command. I feel like it would be cruel and confusing to use one without being able to direct him to what he should be doing.
* Morning runs/walks. We go most afternoons, but rarely in the morning. Not sure if it would help or not since it's so much later in the day that it becomes a problem.
* Doggy TV. Our current bedroom TV is super old and can't run all day without overheating. Would be willing to upgrade it if it's made a measurable difference for anybody.
Open to all ideas and experiences. We do plan to work with our trainer on this if we can't resolve it, but she's about to have a baby so it will be a bit.