Barking dog - AIBU?

[NightMaer]

My neighbours have two dogs, one of which moved in just under 18 months ago. Since then it's been barking at all hours of the day and night, sometimes after midnight. We've sadly never got on, mainly due to their odd ideas of what is and isn't permissible when living in a terraced block of houses.
It escalated last year to the point that we had a slanging match outside the front door (she'd waited for me to exit the house) and she said it was "perfectly normal" for a dog to bark for ten minutes at a time and that it was me being unreasonable and said "Well if he's that bad, why don't you ring the Noise Police? You can't, because you don't have a leg to stand on". I pointed out that I hadn't rung the "Noise Police" as she so succinctly put it, as we all had dogs and had to get along. She then said my dogs were weird as they didn't bark (No because they've been trained properly and not just left or ignored when they did bark!) and said I'd have to record her dog then. I then said I had already done this, but when I went to play it back to her, she said "Oh I'm not standing here for 10 minutes listening to that" and ran away from me into her house!
Since then it's got to the point where it barks horrifically when they're actually IN the house with it and I'm stunned that they think this is acceptable.
The neighbour on the other side of them at that time also told me he'd spoke to her and she'd got quite defensive but (in his own words) "She knows it's got to go and that it's not on", he then said that he was actually looking at moving house (I don't think he realises that he'd have to declare the yappy dog or risk being sued at a later date).
I've put off and put off reporting them to the Council but I can't go on like this. The dog is actually WORSE when they are in the house with him.
Just to clarify, the yapping starts sporadically from around 7.30am until they go out, he's then quiet until someone knocks the door or they come home (but they are in and out a lot) and then it's off and on all night until about 9pm ish.
They are under the misguided impression that it doesn't matter as he's a small yappy dog and that apparently isn't as bad as a big dog!
Thoughts?

I wouldn't find that acceptable at all. And I speak as a new puppy owner of a small breed. The dog hasn't been trained properly. My 16 week old puppy wouldn't do that.

That is completely unacceptable. People are responsible for ensuring that their space isn't interfering with the peace. I had an issue with my neighbor who had a shared wall. He was remodeling his bathroom and would start construction sometimes as early as 6:30 AM. We had to confront him about it as well. You have every right to be comfortable in your own home.

That makes me feel a bit better. Our walls are thin and you don't even hear them telling it not to bark. I kind of get the feeling that they actually egg it on sometimes because we aren't on speaking terms.
I've lived here nearly three decades and never had a bad neighbour until these.

I’m sure they don’t egg it on. Dog owners generally do not like the sound of barking either!

Environmental health and the council. Keep a diary. They will write to them. I did and it didn't go down as a ndn dispute..

I'm not so sure to be honest.
If I told you I had Facebook screenshots where the daughter openly said she wanted to be a**hole neighbour of the year to me and then her friends were all suggesting ways of keeping me awake.. Like getting friends to park their cars outside my house and "dropping beats".. Or maybe if I told you they set up CCTV watching my property (they later claimed it was to watch the dog but the lens was facing out of their window onto my property and they were told by the Police to remove it as it was an offence)... Or that she was waiting outside for me one night and falsely accused me of putting a rape alarm through her letterbox. Her reasoning for it being me was that she had opened the door and saw me "tottering off to my car". She then went on "I didn't know what it was, I pressed the button and it was like a bomb went off in the house". I'd seen it that morning on the pavement as I came home from work and had popped it onto my wall, thinking it was a pocket torch that someone had dropped. I figured if they came back this way it would be easier to find.
After the she shot in the house when I offered to playback the dog barking, I took a photo of it. I hadn't known it was a rape alarm until she said.
I posted it on FB and a friend asked me how she thought she'd activated it.
I repeated what I've typed above, that she said she'd pressed the button.
That's when my friend informed me that no, in actual fact I was right to a certain degree as she had the same personal alarm and the button WAS in fact for a torch on the end of it BUT... To activate it would mean having to pull the pin and cord (like a grenade) out and then the only way to shut it up, short of smashing it open would be to put the pin back in. There was no cord or pin when I picked it up that morning, nor in the pic. Which can only mean that this woman probably set the whole thing up IMHO.
That's the kind of cr@p I'm dealing with.

Dog barking at potential burglar is one thing, dog left to bark and bark is another.
Contact your local council. Mine had an App I downloaded which I pressed to record when the dog barked at night. Then just pressed send, time, duration of barking was automatically shown. Council sent owner a warning.

It may go on as a NDN dispute. Same neighbour used to repeatedly trespass into my garden to feed my chickens because "Well I don't think they like what you're feeding them", used to throw her grass clippings over the fence into my garden, threw all the old fence panels into my garden (she'd claimed at one point that it was my fence!) then when she bought a chimnea 6 months later, they were again going into my garden to take back the wood to burn in it.
At one point she was taking in parcels meant for me and then withholding them until she felt like dumping them over the back wall.
She regularly used to answer her door when someone knocked my door when I was on shifts and she'd say "Oh you won't get an answer out of her, she never answers the door". Not sure if she's a bit dumb but why would you answer the door at 1pm if you're in bed?!
Loads of other stuff too numerous to mention

I didn't know about the app thing, that makes it whole lot easier. Yes I think I will do that. I've tried being as unobtrusive to them as possible and clearly that's not working so if she wants to go down the route of the "noise police" then so be it. It's not like she hasn't had 18 months to resolve the issue.

Totally agree. We ought to be far tougher on noise pollution, especially in an overcrowded island like this. I'm hyper sensitive to noise, and where we now live is a nightmare to me – barking dogs, people shouting and, worst of all, cars with modified exhausts 😡Sorry to go off topic, but they are driving me insane. I'm actually typing this with noise cancelling headphones on. All evening these little idiots drive round and round the country lanes. It's just relentless. Sometimes they wake me up at 3 in the morning, and when they drive past the top of our street the noise seems to go right through the house.

Totally agree regarding the modified exhaust thing, it's getting completely out of hand and I rarely if ever hear of people getting on the spot fines for the racket.

One of our dogs barks a lot in the house, if she sees something move outside, if someone knocks the door or she hears a noise. We’ve never made much progress with the barking despite having a trainer, actually we’ve tried a few different ones.

Its not always lack of trying, but your neighbours sound dreadful.

OP it depends what sort of neighbors you have, they sound like the worst kind. Neighbors who thrive on conflict and won't stop until you show them you won't be intimidated. You need to cut off there actions, get savvy and strict.

First off do not hesitate to bring in n the council, this will puss them off but they are thriving on intimidating you any way so cut them off this route. Also contact 101 every time they shout at you or try to intimidate you, you only need two separate reports to get an anti social behaviour restriction on them.

Next get your own CCTV front and back, it's like an invisible bubble if they feel they can be caught or recorded it vastly limits how they can retaliate. Most likely they will turn there attention else where.

Do nothing and they will see you as a soft touch. Lastly if all else fails look at moving.

If you want to play games I do not recommend it but, with a neighbor I had renting next door with a dog doing same I recorded it barking,, put it on repeat and left it going all night through my speakers next to wall and went out.

Look for 15,000 khz some wave on you tube, see how they like that. Some people can't hear it , I can't so worked treat for me, and most standard recording devices cannot pick it up.

I actually had issues with my own dogs years ago, which is why I gave them lots of leeway and time to try alternative approaches.
It's all about reducing stimuli, whether that be audio or visual.
I know they haven't tried putting the radio or tv on for their dog, as I would have heard it. Likewise with visual stimuli they appear to have given the dog the run of the house, in as much as the barking comes from different areas of the property at different times. I put a plastic opaque film up over my window which pretty much stopped the whole thing.
I've noticed the dog barks more when they're in than when he is left alone and he shuts up when taken upstairs (presumably there is no visual stimuli to set him off) or maybe it's just he connects it with bedtime.
They don't appear to be that bothered about it, either way.

Sorry that should have said sorted my own dogs out lol

Lol I was tempted to get cctv but it was where on earth to put it that didn't encroach on their own property. Because I'm not at all like them and do actually respect other's right to privacy. Might have to soon as some of the roof tiles have started to vanish on the end of the extension - yes they're old but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they hadn't had a bit of "help" as there is a shared access running through the terrace, splitting the gardens into two. Although obviously she's flouted the title deeds and put a gate with a lock on her side so she can enter my part of the tradesman's but I can't enter hers.

With the ring cameras ( they have security ones too) you can create little black squares that block out things past your own property on the record. I'm sure other devices have similar settings but I only am familiar with Ring