On AIBU not homes and property because we're not in the UK so housing law different plus I am more after opinions about whether this would be rude or not and how best to broach it.
We are in the equivalent of an 'under contract' situation buying a house here - some ts to be crossed and is to be dotted but it's pretty certain now. The house has neighbours on each side, our 'plots' are adjacent. On one side is a 5-foot-ish wooden fence. At the back is a much higher wooden fence. On the right is a waist-high sort of chain-link fence very much like this: www.hurricanefenceinc.com/Portals/68630/images/1290335_orig.jpg
These are very common in this city. We have briefly met this neighbour and he is a very nice older gentleman with GCs around our DCs age. He was good friends with the (deceased), previous owner of this house and has a mature garden with many plants which have grown along/sort of become entwined with this chain link fence on both sides. I am not a gardener so am not sure what they are but certainly our neighbour's plants have used the fence as a sort of metal trellis.
DH would very much like a 'solid' wood fence of about the same height instead of the chain-link. Partly because of cohesion/we think it looks nicer, partly so the DCs aren't always losing small toys through the holes, partly for privacy but mostly because on a recent visit to the property we discovered the neighbour has a very friendly but very barky dog. DH was savaged by a dog when he was a child and despite years of therapy and knowing rationally he is not in danger, he reacts badly (freezes, has flashbacks, it's mild PTSD and he can snap himself out of it with the tools he learnt in therapy but it is upsetting for him when dogs run up to him barking or leap at him unexpectedly).
The dog is a sweetheart and the DCs love dogs, it's just DH who has this instinctive reaction. But it would severely impair his ability to enjoy being in the garden if the dog was jumping up at the fence. He can't tune it out.
We both feel it would be unreasonable to ask the neighbour to replace the existing fence with a wooden one as presumably that would disturb or kill the plants he has growing along it. We would ideally like to install a similar-height solid wooden fence (so can still see over it to see hello etc as on the other side), leaving a gap between the two.
But does this strike people as an especially weird or insulting request? Really don't want to get off on the wrong foot with the neighbour for obvious reasons. But DH has had many bad/ridiculing reactions to explaining how he reacts to dogs - people making fun of him because a 'grown man' is scared by their 'friendly dog' who 'wouldn't harm a fly'. And this guy seems genuinely nice, we'd like to have a good relationship with him and certainly not an acrimonious one.
The issue of property boundaries etc is obviously an issue but we'd be willing to give up a few inches of 'our' garden to put up a fence.
What do you think?