I'm the neighbour with the barking dog

[doglover65]

We recently got a new dog - 2 months ago (she's 7, a rescue). She is absolutely angelic except she is so reactive to noises and other people and barks.

When we are home this is fine, annoying, but we are able to stop her and train her. However, when we leave I am so worried about barking.

We have just gone out and I stupidly forgot to shut a blind, so she is staring out the window and barking if someone comes near. I can hear she was barking, she has stopped now but will continue I'm sure.

I don't know what to do!! Our street has so many dogs and they bark all the time and set off her sometimes. We don't mind though, I can block out the noise. Most our neighbours seem fine too. We do have one neighbour though who is very childish in his reactions.

He bangs on the hallway (our attached part) and this usually is what makes her bark more, he rattles our fences (no idea why) and sets them off, he just walks out his front door, stops and stares at our door, then goes back in about 15 times a day.

I'm unsure if he's provoking them now to maybe get a complaint ready?

What would you want to be done if you were my neighbour?

To make it easy to understand, she will bark loud enough for a neighbour to hear for a joint amount of 10 mins, 1 time a week (we've not yet experienced her when we aren't home because of lockdown.) when we've left in the past for supermarket she hasn't barked as I've shut the blind. But if the post man came I know she would bark.

Your Op seems contradictory in that you say she barks once for 10 mins once a week. But you also say she barks when the screen is up and people go by, when the postman comes, when your neighbour rattles the fence or bangs on the wall and when other dogs bark. So I suspect she barks quite a lot more than once a week. And ten minutes barking can seem like a long time.

You also say only one neighbour objects - but then he's the only one who shares a wall with you. A dog barking in an attached house can be really annoying.

Not sure what to suggest, other than to have a bit more sympathy for your neighbour.

I also wonder why you think your dog doesn't bark when she's on her own. How do you know if you aren't there?

Since you’ve asked what we’d want as your neighbours: same as others have said, I’d like to know that you’re currently taking active measures to fix this situation. It’s lovely that you have decided you have the patience and love to extend to rehoming a barking dog, but your neighbours didn’t and expecting them to also deal with it is very unfair.

I would love to have a dog. A chihuahua specifically. But, I live in a block of flats, know that they're mouthy little buggers, so can't get one. I'd also love a cat, but I'm allergic to cats, so can't get one.
Why on earth did you decide to get a 7 year old barky dog in a built up area? It's antisocial.
Just up the road, there's a car alarm that goes off several times a night for a half hour at least before it's stopped. I have personally felt like crawling out of my bed at 4am and keying the car (I haven't, but the thought has crossed my mind).
I'm just getting to the stage where my new neighbour's child screaming at all hours of the night, morning and day has stopped waking me up every 2 hours.
Honestly.

I just don't have the tolerance for noise.

@mucklowe this will encourage separation anxiety and will instead make barking worse!

So many people seem to get dogs when they haven’t got the time to be with them. Why is it OK to own an animal and then ignore or abandon it for hours a day?
So yes, have a barking dog, but accept that many of your neighbours will hate your guts and see you as arrogant, inconsiderate arseholes.

I would get a camera set up indoors so you can see what the dog gets up to when you are not home.

It would also be interesting to see if your neighbour bangs on the wall when you are out to wind the dog up (or does anything though the letterbox!)

I don't agree with shock collars but we got one of those high frequency noise machines that switch on when a dog barks. And we also used dog appeasing pheromones or DAP sprays and plug-ins.
Our dogs didn't bark but they did howl and sometimes it was at ridiculous times in the morning and these definitely helped as well as crate training so they felt they had a safe space.

Don't under estimate how fucking awful and how far it can push someone

This. I've spent nights away staying with a friend just to get away from the utterly fucking relentless barking from next door.

Hearing dogs barking constantly is awful. My old ndn had a yappy thing that would bark from 8am till 6pm without stopping. When I spoke to her, she said oh he only does it when somebody walks past or the postman comes. That was rubbish. So I recorded a few hours of it going on.
It kind of drives you crazy after a while.
Different neighbours have a dog that goes on for ages too. They only did something about it when I posted on the local Fb page that the constant barking was worrying and loads of people said report it to rspca. Bloody thing was doing from 6am this morning, luckily it's not as bad as it was last year. Think the kids torment it as the barking sounds distressed.

OP, how do you know it's not barking when you aren't there? Have you recorded it?

I had reactive dogs too. My one dog set the other off all the time, she was gerting older and we eventually decided that it would be best for her in a quieter home with my parents- she lives 10mins away with them and the last year shes been there , is now non reactive.
Our 2nd dog, we had training, this worked but a few times, we asked our neighbours (friendly) if they could let us know about barking.
He did barl and howl constatntly , when we were out (max 2hrs a time) .
Training worked for us.

Our dog passed away a few months later and now weve no dogs here...
Our neighbours (horrible people, dont look after their dogs at all, never walk them) bark all tge time when they go out...and its absoloutely annoying and the dogs sound quite distressed.

Id reccomend a very reptuable trainer.

Good luckx

@doglover65

Actually Mucklowe is right, don't leave your dog alone until you have addressed the barking and your dog can actually handle being alone, via training/behaviour modification.

I specialise in addressing separation anxiety - not leaving your dog to experience separation anxiety, does NOT 'encourage separation anxiety'. You can't encourage anxiety over something by not forcing someone to experience it.

Hopefully with the advice I gave on page 1 you'll be able to address this fairly quickly but yes if it is a result of separation anxiety/frustration, then leaving her and hoping she gets over it will not work (and if it does then it wasn't an SRP in the first place).

Firstly, please don't use any so-called "anti-bark" devices. All they do is make the dog associate whatever they're barking at with being punished. They might stop the barking, but you'll be making things worse in the long run. That includes beeping collars, vibrating collars and those awful devices that emit a high pitched noise. They're all negative reinforcers and won't help you.

If you're leaving your dog home alone, have you tried that frosted film you can put on the glass? It allows the light to come in but will stop your dog from seeing out. It means if you forget to close blinds or windows, you know your dogs visibility to outside is minimal. I would also try leaving her with some calming music on - you can find it free on YouTube if you want. Have that playing when you leave the house.

If your dog likes chews, freeze a few kongs and dish them out whenever you leave. That way they'll associate you going out with a tasty treat. Mine loves peanut butter in his, but you can fill them with pretty much anything.

All that being said, if your dog genuinely has separation anxiety and is barking out of fear, then none of those techniques will help you unless you get your dog used to being left alone. Unfortunately, that does mean only leaving her for the time she's comfortable with. If that's a minute, then that's all you go out for. Practise - go out, lock the door, wait, then go back in. Gradually increase the time until she's used to being left for however long you need her to be left for, but be aware that lots of dogs have a "limit" and no matter what you try, you won't be able to push them beyond that.

Good luck.

@WiddlinDiddlin I hired a behaviourist who said the exact opposite... this is the confusion.

well, when the fuckers-up-the-road from me leave their dog to bark, I get childish too. When you find yourself googling 'how to poison a dog' you realise how much it gets to you. Waiting for the next episode is immensely stressful.

no, I'm not going to drop chocolate over the fence because it is an offence to cause suffering to a dog - apparently it is ok to leave it screaming for hours though. however the endless excuses REALLY piss me off and I entierely sympathise with your neighbour who is being driven to distraction. 'It's a rescue' is no excuse nor reason. The fuckers-up-the-road have several of the bloody things. Don't run a dog rescue from a house!

either take the dog to day care, have someone stay with it until it is trained or get rid of it. Please own the problem. You chose to have a dog. All we, your suffering neighbours want is for the noise to be reliably and quickly stopped EVERY time it starts. For the decade or so that you will have the dog.

@vanillandhoney she doesn't have separation anxiety thankfully, she is just SO BARKY - so reactive to any noises or anything. Especially the foxes coming in and out of our garden!

I am trying everything to combat it and hiring help, the issue is the neighbour. I don't want to be the asshole neighbour who people moan about.

I've already received passive aggressive notes from our neighbour and did have to call the police as he threatened to kill her himself.

Our dog is similar. We use a white noise machine in the house when we go out and now she only hears and barks when somebody comes to the door, which is a big improvement. We also have the frosted glass cover, as others have suggested, which also helps (although as a warning it makes her bark a little more when she first runs into the garden, as she hasn’t been able to watch the garden).

@mencken you're a delight.
It's a rescue is just a fact - it would be easier to train her if she was a puppy and not an abused dog at the hands of humans.

I have to leave my house to care for my terminal parents and my DH is a key worker. I'm usually at home so the problem is at most 1 hour.

I monitored her whilst we were out the house today for 3 hours. She barked for 4 minutes in the end. Then went to sleep - she barked at the neighbour talking on the doorstep (our Ring doorbell picked that up).

As for the neighbour purposefully making her bark, what's your reason there?

Sorry I should clarify, she is ALWAYS barking at SOMETHING. Someone by the door (as it's a semi, the neighbours door is close so she can't tell the difference, we all have gates so if she hears a gate even if next door she will respond to that), the post man, a knock, someone coming in our garden, another dog barking or a fox. Recently it's been the neighbour banging on the hallway or rattling fences (this only is when we are home as they can then roam the garden)

[quote doglover65]@vanillandhoney she doesn't have separation anxiety thankfully, she is just SO BARKY - so reactive to any noises or anything. Especially the foxes coming in and out of our garden!

I am trying everything to combat it and hiring help, the issue is the neighbour. I don't want to be the asshole neighbour who people moan about.

I've already received passive aggressive notes from our neighbour and did have to call the police as he threatened to kill her himself. [/quote]
If she doesn't have separation anxiety then you just need to be super careful to manage her environment I think. Double check blinds etc. are down before you leave, pop some music on to drown out outside noise and leave her with a chew or something to keep her distracted.

Honestly, 10 minutes barking once a week is nothing. And as for barking at the postman/the door - isn't that the whole point of having a dog?! It's really not something the council or anyone would be remotely interested in unless it was accompanied by loads of other problems.

Try a DAP diffuser plug in as well OP, you could put it on an hour before you leave.

I wouldn’t worry about 4 mins of barking in 3 hours when you are out, personally, unless you think she’s distressed.