How to say "to nothing" with a positive verb in Japanese?

Question

Since なにも seems to only mean nothing with a negative verb if you want to use a phrase for example "The dog barked at nothing" in Japanese how would you express it? Is it 犬がなにもに吠えなかった because that seems wrong to me.

Answer 1

I will say "to nothing" まったく in this case of sentence though we still understand what you want to say.

　犬は、まったく吠えなかった。or 犬が、まったく吠えなかった。