BArk, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark...

You folks will understand.

My next-door neighbor is working in his yard and on his boat. Bang, bang, bang...crank, crank...buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz...bang, bang...scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. Got it?

Dogs across the street, Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark!!! FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!! At the neighbor in HIS OWN YARD!!!

Ugh! Can we please have some quiet?!?!?!?!

Okay, I'm better now. I just needed to vent. Maybe I need some meditation classes. Or earplugs. Or the shotgun. NO NO NO!!! Don't go there! Paintgun? No, they'll know who it was. Hmmm...Talk to the neighbors? They're not home.

Just kidding about the guns. ☺ They're somebodies babies and I couldn't. Could I? No...I won't. I really AM just kidding. Really.

Been there. I know exacty how you feel. We would come home after a hard day at work to relax on the deck and hear all of the above. We would have to go in the house! And then the dog barking all night long, drove us mad.

After a couple years of nice chats, more serious chats, out right complaints, begging, reasoning, and going crazy. Middle of the night pounding on the door to get them to quiet the dog. Calling the cops, and having the people ticketed several times.
We moved.

Now we have to shut the bedroom door to the deck because the geese, frogs, coyotes, owls and bugs are making racket. LOL

But it is a good racket!

I would MUCH rather have REAL sounds of nature. Not dogs. Our neighbor to the east of us has a dog that barks every time he goes on vacation or just away for the weekend. He never takes the dog, leaves him all alone. That dog used to bark the hole time he was gone, morning and night. We learned a trick. We keep a box of biscuits just for him! He knows us well enough now that he shuts up when the treats come out.

All incorporated cities have a "nusinance" law. File a complaint with your city attorney. It is also illegal to leave a dog unattended for more than 4 hours at a time. You CAN do something about this issue - I have personal experience!

New people moved in down the road. They converted the old hay field into an ATV track for his little kids and drinking buddies. Every weekend it sounds like a locust invasion and we live a mile away. Friends who have the property next to his are going insane with the noise and so are their horses. They are considering spending thousands of dollars on a berm so they don't have to look at these drunken yahoos. They have spoken with all the county officials and there's nothing they can do about it. Their only recourse is to prove it's lowered the value of their property.

Yeah, it's either little yappers or cars going vroom, vroom or the newest thing...motorcycles. Sheesh!

Most times it's okay but yesterday? I just had had enough and needed to say something.

Oh, my gosh, this is the conversation I've been waiting for.

Several of our neighbors have dogs. Most of them bark. At the air.
At a leaf dropping. At anyone and anything at anytime. The dog next
door is just plain ignorant. Boo whoo whoo whoo whoo. Repeat
Boo whoo whoo whoo whoo. Repeat.
All night long. Not one time do you hear the neighbors tell the dog
to lie down or be quiet.

Is it just me, or do these people not hear their own dog barking?
When I'm standing in the yard and my dogs are barking at the
neighbors, we tell them to stop, and they do. I equate your dog barking
to your children screaming at the top of their lungs. They are your kids,
your pets. Teach them, control them. Good grief!

The neighbors, on the other hand, carry on as if they couldn't hear
a thing, when the dog is barking right next to them. I've often been
tempted to yell "Hey, can't you hear that dog barking?"

Perhaps we are odd, but even our own dogs know when the neighbor's
dogs are being bad. We tell our dogs "Tell that dog to shut up!" Shut
up, dog!" Then our dogs bark a time or two, look up at us and seek
approval for what they just told the neighbor dogs.

I'm serious. Our dogs are not extremely smart, they are just taught
to use their manners. Sure, even they get off track at times, but they
know when to shut up. Just now I said out loud "Shut up, dog" and my
dog looked up, looked around and looked at me as if to say "Mom, I
don't hear anyone barking." LOL

We don't allow our dogs to bark either. Our Sheltie stretches the limits...a lot sometimes. I've never understood barking dogs either. From the time I've been a kid we've taught our dogs not to bark for no reason...and all the neighbors have always commented on how quiet they are. As soon as they are pups and learn what "no" means it's a very easy thing to get them to stop barking. I've also wondered how those folks who own the dogs sleep at night with all that racket...have they just become immune to the noise or what?

And, I hate to say it because some may disagree, but I've noticed that most folks who have wild dogs also have wild kids. A little lack of discipline goes a loooong way.

If I were you I really would report the neighbor who leaves his dog when he goes away. That IS against the law...not just because the dog barks and becomes annoying, but because no one is there to care for him if he gets hurt, or to feed him and get him water. I'm guessing he's left outdoors when the guy goes away....and what if a big storm comes through? Sheesh...this dog needs a GOOD home. Poor baby.

As for all the other noises, I can't say too much because we are usually the ones making them...I mean the noises for working on and building things. I hate it too because I'm always wondering if we are driving the neighbors mad. No one has ever said anything, but I still wonder. Usually when we are building something outside the neighbors wander over and we talk for a while so I hope that means they are ok with it! If they ever asked me to stop I would do my best to make them happy. DH works nights and we have been through all that garbage with the neighbors mowing their lawns, cutting up wood, putting on a new roof...and there's not a lot you can do. We've found a radio or TV playing quietly often will drown out a lot.

Oh my! I didn't mean to make it sound like my neighbor who leaves his dog is neglectful. He has someone come and take care of him. Feeds and waters and walks him. He has a HUGE doghouse that's heated, so he's in no danger of becoming cold if it rains. Ad his barking we've taken care of. It was just annoying, at first.

The ones across the street, however, are enough to make an otherwise sane person want to run screaming into the street and beat someone. When the people are home, they come out if I yell at the dogs to zip it. A certain amount of cussing will sound across the neighborhood in accompanyment. Sad to say, I'm not very subtle when it comes to noise.

And I think I've posted elsewhere about the noisy neighbors with the cars. They work on them all summer and my next step, if they start again THIS summer, is to go to the city and find the owners of the house and complain to them.

We picked this area because of the quiet. It's mostly retired poeple. But the couple across from us decided after two years to move out of state. Now, it's rental property.

I don't have a barking dog problem, I have the "crossing the road to poop in my yard and play with my dog, then romp through the flower beds" problem. I usually call the neighbors "the girls are out again" or walk them back across the road myself. My dog won't cross the road. He stations himself at our property's edge and watches the neighbors dogs play. He's a good boy, but I know he really, really, wants to go over there and play with the girls. I wouldn't mind it so much except for the extra poop and the busted plants.

Ugh, pastime. I put up with that for a long time before we ever had dogs. Our neighbor would walk her dog so it could poop in other people's yards. She still does this, but now she carries a waste bag with her. Another neighbor called the police on her...they had just had their lawn resodded...and she doesn't like dogs anyway. That little scandal was the talk of the neighborhood for quite some time, lol. When I walk my dogs they aren't even allowed to walk onto people's lawns...I don't want them getting blamed for something they didn't do.

Now, my lawn, that's a whole other story. With four dogs we don't have a lot of grass in the potty area. Hopefully this is the year we fill that whole area in with mulch.

Okay here's our story.... got my 10yr old a beagle. Oh boy, the barking she can do. This is our first dog purchased for our only son. I incessently drill it into my son's head to make sure to not walk on other's grass, walk the middle of the road so u won't walk on others grass, grab a poopy bag (we leave in the country so no leash lawas but to keep the peace, we do anyway). Gotta a zipline but she sometimes barks when she gets bored, so in she goes inside. I am thinking about getting the invisible fence system so she can finally run around free, but in our yard and get her exercise. No matter how much walking we walk her or biking, she needs to run, she's 8months old, mini beagle. But if we let her loose, she goes into the neighbors yard, and then I hear the cursing begin. Sighs... so, anyone have + or - things to say about the Invisible Fence type systems before I spend alot of $$$? Thanks so kindly. :)

rebecca30

This message was edited May 18, 2008 10:36 AM

If they are barking at the construction activity, I would get some nice cookies, or whatever and go over and just politely ask them if they could to keep it to specific hours, or if you could agree to specific hours because of the noise it provokes at the dogs.

Just give some innocent reason like kids needing their sleep, or work, or whatever. Then tell him that you are buying earplugs as your end of the effort. Keep the tone light and be very thankful as if it's a given that he's going to limit the hours rather then leaving him too much of an opening to say no. I would try to go the nice route first and hope he didn't know it was such an issue.

I feel for you Rebecca. I've been there and done that with dogs...but I never did invest in an invisible fence. One thing you'll want to remember is that your dog is only 8 months old. She still has lots to learn. She has a ways to go yet before she's dependable, so don't judge her behavior now on how she'll be in a year from now...she'll be a completely different dog. She has lots and lots of endless puppy energy right now. By the time she's 3 yrs old you probably won't be able to get her off of the couch!

The fences work, but they take training. I had a friend who had one and it worked great for her Westie. I've read that if the dog runs through the fence once it's all over with...but I don't know if that's really true or just a rumor.

For my money I just walk my dogs around and around and around our property on a leash. Sometimes you have to do this in the very early morning or late night when no one else is around so they aren't too distracted. Whenever they start to venture into territory that's not where you want them you just tell them "no" and make them come back into their own yard. To make it easier for a pup to understand you can use markers of some kind...the fences do this too. The fences usually use flags, but you could use a hose laid on the ground...a piece of clothes line tied between two sticks...or even put some flour in a squeeze bottle and mark the areas (have to repeat that one after a rain though). Once she sees the boundaries it'll be easier for her to remember them...eventually she'll relate them to permanent structures in your yard.

The other thing you NEED to do is teach her to come to you on command...NO MATTER WHAT. Get a length of clothesline and tie it to her collar. Take her out in the woods in a clearing or on an old back road. Let her think she's loose, then call her. If she doesn't come then gently reel her in and give her a treat when she gets to you. Every time she comes to you give her a treat. Before you know it she'll be constantly jumping on your legs thinking she's going to get a treat.

After she starts to get the idea of what all her "new" commands and routines are then start doing them when there are more and more distractions around...like at noon when the neighbor is mowing his lawn...put her on her clothesline and call her.

It's work and it takes time and lots of patience, but when they finally respond how you want them to it is SOOOO worth it. You just feel like your dog is the best in the world! It can be frustrating training a new pup, but it really builds the relationship with the dog.

For more info why not post this on the Pet's Forum, you'd get lots of ideas over there about how to train her with or without the fence.

That's good advice Heather has given. My CATS come when called. Every time. If they hesitate at the door, they get a 1-2-3 count. If by three they haven't decided, the door closes.

Routine is the most important part. Those dogs have been barking at everyone for so long, it's a habit. They win the fight every day and so they think that's what they're supposed to do. Fortunately, most times, it's only for a minute, so it's not all that bad. That one day was the worst ever. Combo of noises got to me. LOL ☺

Off the barking for just a second...

Bwa ha ha, Kwan, I can't help but to laugh at your comment about the cats.

We have four cats and the door holding thing has reached ridiculous proportions.
Each cat knows the boundaries, but they push it anyways. Ti Wi will sit and
scratch until you open the door. We have a metal door, so she knows that scraping
screeching on the metal will get the door open quickly. However, when it comes
to being in wanting to go out, she will literally sit there frowning at the door for
an hour without saying a word. IF she meows, it sounds like a deathbed meow.

Tredder sits for hours if necessary. We have a doggie door they can use 24-7, but
she doesn't want to use it. Truth be told, she's fat and doesn't like the size of the
door these days, even though the dogs can fit just fine. She's the one who opens
her mouth, forms the meow, but it never comes out verbally.

When you hold the door, it's the "Gee, wait a second, maybe I'll stretch. Oh, wait,
that felt good, let me do the other side. Okay, time to go in, well, no, well, maybe,
well, hmmmm..."

Hans makes a mad dash when the door is held, because he's had a tail in the
door, and Liblet is the worst.

All of the cats sit at the garden gate looking at us while we are on the swing. They
even have that look on their faces like "Bah. Jump the gate? I think not. Get up
and let me in."

Sadly, I do. And they know it.

KM

HANS and LIBLET share a nap in a basket that is waaaay too small for either
of them.

ROTFLOL

That's priceless! I've shown this one before. I know all about baskets that are too small.

Oh, how sweet they look! If my kitty would only ever do anything sweet like that! Instead he gets into my sink and licks the dirty dishes (yes I rinse them, it doesn't matter). He sleeps right in front of the door and won't move so you have to hit him with the door to get him to move if you want inside. Or he sleeps on my hutch in the kitchen...or on my loaf of bread...or on top of the fridge. I bought him a bed that he used for a whole 3 days...then it was "used" I guess and no longer interested him...so I gave it to the dog who just loves it.

Oh, I almost forgot, he also sleeps on top of the garbage can. Once I threw something into the garbage can and heard a "ROWWWWLLL!!" and he came flying out of it. Sleeping in the garbage can is not sweet or cute. Neither is ruining an entire loaf of bread...or knocking my bananas onto the floor...and finding my dogs eating them, peal and all. Oh, I could go on for days...but you get the idea.

Anybody want to trade kitties???

Don't have an Invisible Fence, but a couple friends do. One friend has a Lab who chased a rabbit through the electric field. When the couple got up the next morning they found the dog sitting outside the area. She was too afraid to cross the invisible fence to come home. I don't believe she ever crossed the line again.

We had a neighbor who would go away for 2-3 days and leave his dog tried to a tree. The dog would get tangled and couldn't reach food or water. I always took care of the dog, even though the neighbor never knew it. Eventually the dog didn't have a dog house anymore and then I called the police. But you want to hear the best part? One day the guy MOVED and left his dog tied to the tree. After about 4 days of taking care of the dog I called the cops again. The cops came over and discovered the guy had moved out. The poor dog ended up in the dog pound. He was a sweet, wonderful dog and I hope he found a good home.

We've just made animal torture a felony in Utah. It's about bloody time! I had neighbor do that. Moved and didn't take the dog. He was a beautiful English Spaniel. I rescued the poor thing. TWO WEEKS later, they come back and want their dog. HA!!! Police and SPCA called. They come...and guess what? Legally the dog is theirs. I was ordered to give the dog to them. Which I did with much cussing! They even came back and tried to sue me. They lost.

I read an article recently about the fact that as the housing market crashes and foreclosures rise, many more animals are simply being left behind at the foreclosed homes. It was depressing.

kwanjin, that is unbelieveable! Was there any way that the neighbor could actually prove the dog was theirs? Otherwise I would have just told them it wasn't! And good for Utah to make animal torture a felony. Wish more states would.

Unfortunately, I told the authorities the dog had been theirs. I wanted them punished for what they had done. Kind of backfired.

BTW, the two dogs across the street are barking now. Bark, bark, bark...LOL A lady walking by set them off. Okay, they're done.

Can I share a funny story about dogs barking...my girlie pumpkin was ill and the neighbor's pekingnese was yapping, yappity, yap, yap, yap.. early one morning... my head was hurting, I was pregnant and I was sleep deprived. Yappity! Yap! Yap! Yap!! Yappity! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! The Yapping got closer..yep..there was my neighbor with her still yapping dog pooping in my garden!! Before I knew it I grabbed a smelly soiled diaper out of the pail, ran outside and confronted my neighbor with the smelly soiled contents and politely asked her.." would you like me to return the favor ..I could start throwing my pumpkin's soiled diapers on your front porch and when she's having colic at 3 AM, I could bring her under your window in exchange for your dog's yapping?" The neighbor stared at me with her mouth dropped open to the ground, and no she did not have a poopie bag for her dog's unwanted gift, so I gave her one! Afterwards, I heard very little of the yappity yap and had no more unwanted gifts in my gardens. Normally , I am not confrontational..LOL!

ROTFLOL Oh, that's priceless!!! I needed a laugh this morning! Thank you! ☺☺☺

You're welcome!! ;0)

Great job of getting your point across!

Gold~ if I was well rested, and not hormonal... it would have never occured to me to be so blunt. ;0)

Ha! I do stuff like that when I'm not hormonal. I just can't stand rudeness. Especially in "adults". Children I can excuse for a short time then they have to learn.

Talking about "adults" needing training...OOPS! I mean "dogs"! Well you know, some adults (and children too) could benefit greatly from obedience training! Just common courtesy in respecting other people's space,peace,and feelings from endless, mindless dog barking etc. When we went to obedience school with our dog, we were instructed that frequent dog barking reflected lazy dog owners... who choose not to invest the time nor the energy into training their pets. He even made that statement about dogs who jump on people to greet you or to entertain themselves.

Yup, that was another (hidden) point I was making. The people over there do things in a funny way. Let the dogs bark except when THEY are bothered by it or when someone complains, water their lawn while it's raining (?!), top one of their trees,...I don't get it.

I don't get it either... ;0)

I say we all pour ourselves a nice glass of whatever floats our boat
and enjoy this moment.

LOL

Oh, I am so there with you!!! LOL

I go the invisble fence. Loveeeeee it. She had 1 or 2 incidents of going to close to the outside perimeter, but after that, she has been very good about staying away from the white flags and staying in our own yard.

Unfortunately, our neighbors had come over to our porch this evening to complain to me out us burning cardboard in our backyard. Last time I checked, I live in the county, not city and I can't control wind direction. I told them it was just cardboard but they insisted I was burning just more than just cardboard. I can't wait to move. lol


rebecca30

So sorry, Rebecca. I've been to your neck of the woods and you are in the country. When do you move and where? LOL

Shoot, when I was a kid we had a Samoyed, Snowball, and that darn dog was extremely intelligant but constantly dug! He would dig under the fence and "escape" but he wouldn't stay close by, he'd go walk the whole city of 150,000 people! One time right after a real good rain, so the ground was all muddy, he dug out to the house behind us (they had 2 black labs), and there were no alleys, dug their 2 dogs out of their yard and the owner of the labs found these 3 big dogs walking along one of Modesto's major roads headed toward the mall! She put all 3 muddy dogs in her little hatchback car and brought Snowball back to us, you want to talk about a muddy mess, my mom offered her a car wash, but she refused it.

So back to what I was going to say, my dad put one of those invisible electric fences to keep Snowball in the yard, shoot, he pawed at it so much it broke, then out he went! Took him 3 hours to break it.

I grew up in the city and have had my time with dogs, so we move here to Arkansas way out in the country and low-in-behold, the old man up the street, who the street is actually named after, and the people across the forest a piece both let their dogs run, their dogs are not mean or misbehaved, they just are allowed to roam the neighborhood. We had people diagonally across the street from us, in an old trailer, that were raising pits. When they first moved in their 2 pits got out, my next door neighbors had 3 dogs (a beagle and 2 yellow labs that were sisters,) broke through the dog pin and injured the beagle and killed one of the yellow labs. The beagle stayed at the vet for a few days, then right after it healed from that those pits got out Again, this time killed the beagle! So the husband next door wasn't home but the wife was, she got her gun, killed one of the pits as it was killing her beagle and injured the other pit in the shoulder. Now my good neighbors have have a Rotweiler, the other yellow lab and some sort of little white poodle thing. The bad neighbors recently moved out, leaving dog poo and pee all over the trailer, dirty diapers all over the place, moldy walls, massively infested with roaches and rats, and garbage all over the front and side patios.
Anyway, I'm on a tangent apparently, the pack of 5 dogs that walk the neighborhood mentioned earlier are 1. a Pickenese, 2. Beagle, 3. Weinmerider, 4. Boston Terrier, 5. a Beagle/Boxer mix. To see them all together is hilarious!

This message was edited Jul 24, 2008 10:27 AM

This message was edited Jul 24, 2008 10:29 AM

I too H A T E to hear non stop barking dogs. Now I raise collies who due to the fact that they are herders would bark at squirrels, birds, geese flying over head, I even have one that will bark at the helicopters and plans.... So when we moved from our farm in Kentucky to northern Ohio I went and had them de barked as we were having to move into a subdivision and I can't stand for mine to bark, and I sure didn't want to cause problems with new neighbors...

Now mine don't bark non stop, but they will bark when someone steps into my yard or an animal comes through... They really get excited when the deer are running by. But now when they bark it is like a wisper. Most folk when they hear them for the first time think they have a sore throat. It is painless to the dog and makes for neighbors who enjoy them instead of hating them.

On the next street over there are 3 rotties and when the guy lets them out on the weekend, they bark from friday night to sunday night.

I agree, our dogs are another type of child that needs to have manners.

Janet

Why is it that the owners of barking dogs can't hear them? Are they deaf or just so used to it they don't hear it anymore? We had a neighbor at one time who would go off drinking with boyfriend and leave her dogs chained out in her yard for days at a time. They were pit bulls, of course, so I was afraid to try to check on them. The animal control would leave notes and fine the woman every so often but it did no good whatsoever. She finally moved out of town to abuse her animals without interference. Sad. It is usually the owners who are more problem than the animals.