Aibu to report neighbours barking dogs to council?

[Cokefloat82]

Moved into new place end of last year and found neighbours had dogs. Not a problem apart from the barking ranging between 6am and 7.30am and around 10.30pm for final walks of the day. This results in either me/partner being woken up in the morning or little one being woken when trying to sleep in the evening. All in all 13 instances recorded in the last 16 days.
Have kept a record ready to submit complaint to the council now as have tried talking to neighbours but just got the comments back that they can’t control barking, can’t train their dogs and the previous owner never complained so it isn’t a problem.
I’m at my wits end.

No. Report them.
The fact they own dogs should not impact your life.

Also does anyone have experience of complaining to the council about this kind of thing? What were the results?

They bark all of twice a day and you want to report them? Or am i reading this wrong

Report them. Nobody should put up with shit neighbours. A dog barking at 6;30 would drive me up the wall.

What are you talking about? A few barks? A few minutes? Or long stretches of barking?

That's just normal noise. It's not as if they're barking non stop all day (in which case, I'd consider reporting not to the council but the RSPCA in case of neglect).

We regularly get woken up by neighbours car doors banging at around 6am. There's nothing we can do except wear earplugs. It's just everyday neighbourhood noise.

@1vandal2

They bark all of twice a day and you want to report them? Or am i reading this wrong

Depends how long each episode is for, I guess. My neighbour's dogs only had two outbursts the other day - unfortunately one of them was at 2am and lasted for over three hours. I'd be miffed with the early morning/late evening stuff too.

Inconsiderate morons.
Report them.

They bark more than twice a day. It’s these instances though that are affecting the quality of life for the entire family waking us up at those points. I really couldn’t care less after 8.30am and before 8pm as that’s normal living hours in my opinion

Probably around a period of 10mins during the hours that are affecting us. They bark for longer periods during the day too but that isn’t the issue. It’s the disturbance to sleep

I’m surprised that a barking dog would wake up a child from a deep sleep, and I don’t think you should expect dead silence from outside in the early morning either. Perhaps if your DC got up a bit earlier in the morning s/he’d sleep through a bark or 2 easier at night 🤷🏻‍♀️

No in this instance I think the onus is on you to reduce sound coming in. It sounds like a near reasonable amount of noise right on the border of the time of day I'd consider acceptable.

I would report, it is on the onus of the dog owners to ensure they don't disturb other people not the other way around.

Mind you I am yet to meet a dog owner who believes their dogs bark

I'm not sure in reality what the council would do. Especially as you say it is just when going for walks.

I’d call 6-7am a normal time to already be up for most people that have day jobs and/or kids to get ready for school. I wouldn’t call it an unreasonable hour. 10.30pm is not ideal but not stupidly late either for the sake of a few minutes, I’d expect the majority of kids who are properly asleep to sleep through this.

If they were barking for prolonged periods then I’d say complain but whilst not ideal and a tad annoying I don't think the times and duration you state are wholly unreasonable and probably fall under normal household noise.

I think if it was an occasional thing I don’t think I’d be so fussed but it’s regular. For those saying it’s on the cusp of regular time I’d agree but I’d rather it was my alarm waking me at the time I want rather than dogs barking.
I do appreciate that this is probably more of a summer than winter problem with the windows open. They are being replaced so will see if that helps, the warm weather will be gone soon I guess :-( and the windows are being replaced which may help.
A small change of routine for dog walk times is what I was going to ask from them which I don’t think is unreasonable (they are retired) but they don’t want to even talk.
Unable to sleep I think I may have found another solution too in the form of a sound activated dog whistle that can apparently be used to train dogs so will give that a go.

Have you talked to them op? People with a blanket report them if the op hasn't even discussed them are being very unreasonable and I find it sad th as t you're reporting for a dog being excited for a walk to be honest (and I'm not even a huge dog person!) We have dogs here that bark more than that, and when we meet the owner she apologises but I know she hasn't got them chained up in a little square or anything cruel, they're a barky breed (looked them up when we ourselves were thinking about getting a dog)

Rather than reporting them to the council why don't you go and have a friendly chat with them? They maybe more than happy to do something about it, change their routine, keep the dogs in around those times etc.

A few years ago I had to rush to the hospital because my Mum was dying, it was early morning so I left the dogs outside as I didn't know how long I'd be. Turns out they'd barked and someone reported me to the environmental health. If the person who'd reported me had come round and had a chat I would have been able to explain myself. I'd probably have had some flowers delivered or similar as a sorry. But what they did upset and stressed me out along with the fact my mum died that day too.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't know what's going on with other people and sometimes a friendly chat is all that's needed:

I tried yesterday and was polite. I asked them if they’d be willing to talk just so they could hear me out which is when I was told that we shouldn’t have moved in to a house where there were dogs next door, that a dog couldn’t be trained and that the previous owner didn’t have a problem so we shouldn’t either.

I had this problem too. 2 yappy little dogs that just barked all the time. Early morning until late at night. The noise bothered all the surrounding neighbours. It was relentless. We could see that the owner was sat in her lounge with her doors open just letting them yap. A few of us went round individually to let her know that we were bothered by it and she said that they were just singing 🤦‍♀️! Nothing was done so I spoke to environmental health. I was told to log all the noise and times and ask as many neighbours as possible to sign it and make comment. We did this (along with sound recording) and they wrote to her. For a while there was an improvement and then it slowly started up again, so we complained again. They wrote again threatening noise pollution action and there was a massive improvement. She has moved now! Thank goodness!

I’m shocked at the amount of people who put this down to normal noise! Other people’s lifestyles should not impact others to the point that they are waking them up at 6am every day. It’s not acceptable.
I cannot stand lazy dog owners who let their dogs bark and I say this as a dog owner.
Levels of inconsiderate neighbour behaviour seem to have sky rocketed recently. It’s not hard to be considerate of the people who live close to you.

Thanks, Annie. One of my dog owner friends said the same thing

So, to answer your question OP. Your council probably has a dog warden, experienced in this stuff.
Contact the dog warden. He or she will investigate and if they believe it’s unreasonable will initially have a word. Or will tell you you are unreasonable.
I get it, I have 2 dogs and it annoys me when they bark, but then the screaming teenager next door annoys me and the bloody cat from behind. But then I am a grumpy old woman.

Hmm, 10 minutes is a bit shit... but, I don’t know if it’s long enough that the council will do anything tbh.

It’s no use logging it just when it’s the times that bother you btw, you’ll need to keep a diary of every time they bark and how long for - google your council and dog barking

Yes absolutely report it. Barking dogs should not be left alone to bark for long periods in the garden at anti social times.

My neighbour has a dog and I can barely tell he's there despite her hanging washing in the garden at the crack of dawn every day.

If you've asked nicely and they aren't willing to try and do anything about it they've given you no choice but to report. I think some dog owners are oblivious to the fact that not everyone loves dogs.