Who is being unreasonable re dog & cats?

[LaLyra]

My head is pickled thanks to a row with my neighbour (well more neighbour had a go at me and I said I thought he was wrong so he shouted some more until I walked away until he can talk like a civil adult).

I have 3 cats. On sunny days, like today, my cats like to lie in my garden. All morning and most of the afternoon they were on the patio slabs asleep in the sun. Now the sun has moved/mostly gone, one of the cats (who is a sun worshipper) has moved to lie on the wall as it's higher and still in a sunny spot.

My neighbour has 2 dogs. One is a Westie who on his own is fine, doesn't bat an eyelid at the cats. The other is a little yappy thing, no idea of breed. This dog barks at everything especially the cats. It is currently going nuts at the cat, who is on the wall asleep ignoring it, this (as always) has set the Westie off barking as well.

When the cats are low in the garden the dogs can't see them because after the neighbour moved in last year he used to put the dogs out in the garden while he got on with decorating. At that point the noise didn't bother him, but I had a newborn and it drove me mad. So after trying and suggesting various things, including keeping my cats in of a morning and only letting them out after the dogs had had several hours in the garden to which he said I could go fuck myself if I thought I was keeping his dogs in all afternoon (this was the second time I'd ever spoken to him so this is the level of co-operation I've got) we put up fence panels that they can't see though. We're not allowed high fences and the boundary fence is actually his so we built that fence inside our garden. The fence works for most of the day.

Neighbour now works in a school so is about more during the holidays. He stormed out tonight ranting and raving about how he's not listening to my cats tormenting his dogs all holidays. Won't accept at all that his dog (who barks at the postman, us in our garden, anyone walking past, cars driving by, birds flying, trees moving in the wind - i.e. it barks constantly!) is the problem.

Am I missing something? Should I somehow be enforcing a height restriction on my cats or should he actually try and do something with his dog to stop it barking so much?

Apparently he's going to speak to the council noise people. Surely they can't do anything as I/my cats are not making any noise?

This is brilliant! OP, your neighbour is utterly bonkers. I love that he actually did report your cats to the council

taxi4ballet We get that as well. There is a big ginger Tom cat who occasionally roams around spraying on things. NDN went apeshit because my cat pissed on his car. He was about 4 minutes into his rant when he paused long enough to let me point out that I don't have a ginger cat.

I'd love to know what he said to the council. the girl had to put me on hold to 'check something' twice and I know it was because she was laughing. Her voice kept cracking.

I'm slightly nervous though. He'll be raging.

Oh but surely the least you could offer to do is to swivel the Earth for a bit so the sun isn't shining beyond say 4 pm and your cat can't sunbathe.

Your NDN is going to just love being home for the long summer break .

taxi4ballet, that's the only thing that could be more hilarious than the OP's situation- your NDN reporting to the council that the ghost of your cat was harassing his dog. Does the Society for Psychical Research ever get involved in these things?

I can't believe he has actually reported your provocative cat!

Glad you reported him too, that will teach him to try and get the council involved. Karma for him.

Sorry did i read right this guy is reporting myself to the council noise department! Ok ive entered a strange world. Can i be a fly on your wall when the council come around please (opens the popcorn, pull out a sun lounger and borrows a cat)

OP this thread has made my day. I have dogs, as does my neighbour. He reported us to the council because one of our dogs bark when he takes his out (he passes our gate). My one dog barks, possibly twice. His 6 dogs bark loads in return, as well as at birds, passersby, the cat from 4 doors down etc whenever they area left in the garden.
council people came, heard his dogs going nuts because he'd gone out and knocked our door to give us a warning. Was quite funny to see their faces when they came in to see 3 snoozing, sunbathing terriers in the garden, ignoring 6 barking collies next door!

The cat from 4 doors down quite often lies on my garden wall watching my dogs. They initially whined and barked at it. It didn't take them long to realise it's too smart to ever jump into the gardens I they ignore it now.

If I were your would try and annoy him further put a toy cat on top of your fence when yours are out of site then go out but then I have a bit of childish evil in me for idiot neighbours!

Oh dear! I can picture the scene:

Cat lying there, peacefully snoozing with one eye gleefully watching ballistic dog

Yawns; stretches; stands to arch back; turns over; sticks tongue out at dog "Honest, Guv - just cleaning my whiskers!"...

And every time it shuts up, just a light flick of the tail to set it off again!

My two cats are also guilty of causing noise disputes between neighbours. The are house cats 99% of the time and have never left our back garden. But they cause the most horrendous noise... by sitting on our windowsill.

Next door has a Westie and she tells anyone who will listen that her dog only barks because my cats torment it. Even though most of the neighbours fell out with her over the dog's barking several years before we even got our cats.

One morning I was hanging out washing and she was in her garden on the phone to someone. The dog was yapping as usual and she was obviously asked what her dog was barking at because she replied "oh its the cats next door, she tries so hard to get along with them but they just wind her up and bulky her into barking". I shouted over the fence to let her know that my cats weren't even there that morning, my husband had taken them to the vets an hour earlier. The dog was promptly hauled inside and the door slammed.

It's ok though.. she's installed a statue in her garden. It's of a Westie and it's staring straight at the windowsill my cats like to sit on................ because we all know that'll scare away two goody cats

Bully, not bulky..

Update Neighbour has spent the day building a new fence all around his garden. He's basically replicating the panel style one we put up on the other three sides of the garden.

I started keeping a noise diary, but I've had 3 kids with chicken pox on my hands (not all in one helpful go, one after the other of course...) so didn't really get into it much, but it turns out neighbour on the other side had already complained and the guy opposite also complained when he found out the first one had complained. Turned out this is what sparked the complaint to me by him.

The noise people have no issue, surprise surprise, with my cats. They've been out to him several times. There's also been someone out from the RSPCA at least twice that I'm aware of. I think his neighbour complained because they were locked out in the garden several times when he was at work and they barked all day at everything passing and they don't have anywhere to shelter from rain.

The neighbour who complained also said she saw him at the community centre with yappy dog the night dog training is on so fingers crossed. Although he's playing a tit-for-tat game and has complained about several neighbours (one for a noisy BBQ, someone's music, a children's party and guy opposite's dodgy exhaust - although that one did sound like a tank til he got it fixed) so I'm expecting complaints in the summer and the kids are in the garden more.

He's not really suited to living near people, is he?.

He's a shitty owner too leaving the dog out in the rain, that's just mean.