Don’t want to “make friends” with neighbour’s dog…

[randomdogfriend]

NC for this. Sorry it's long!

Small backstory: Neighbour has a yappy dog that never stops, it comes right up to the fence in our back garden and barks incessantly whenever any of us go into the garden. It also barks at passers by on the street - it literally follows them along the fence yapping incessantly as they walk down the street. Neighbour does very little to address this - the occasion half hearted “stop that (name of dog)”, but it doesn’t listen to her and she doesn’t physically remove it. Last year I had a word with the neighbour about this through the fence - the barking was so bad it was upsetting my then newborn aged baby as we sat in the garden. She argued back with me and was generally unpleasant, so I threatened to report her if it didn’t stop. This was around 12 months ago and I’ve had no interactions with her since. The dog has done its usual nuisance barking at the fence when we’ve been out in the garden but I’ve largely tried to ignore it, and now that DD is a bit older she isn’t as startled or bothered by it. So we just largely ignore now.

Today I took DD (now 15 months) out in the garden to play. I sat on the grass relaxing whilst she played. Yappy dog approached the fence as per usual, but we were far enough away from the fence that I could mostly tune it out and just focus on playing with DD. DD didn’t seem remotely bothered by it either. I was then aware of neighbour approaching the fence and heard her say “oh are you saying hello (dogs name)?” Dog continued to incessantly yap. I ignored and continued to play with DD.

Next thing I heard “excuse me can I talk to you?“ through the fence. The fence is too high to see over it, and you can just about make out a person through the slats but I couldn’t really see her. I said “sorry, do you mean me?” (Not really able to see anyone at this point, just a shadow through the fence, and I was also sat a good few feet away from the fence. She said “yes”. I said “erm, yeah I suppose, I can’t see you but I can hear you”. She said “I’m sorry my dog barks and annoys you”. I replied “that’s ok” and then continued to engage with DD who was toddling around (so my attention was more focussed on her and I honestly didn’t want to have any interaction with anyone else at that point). I was hoping this would end the conversation. She continued: “if you made friends with her, she wouldn’t bark at you”. I just again decided to give a one word answer in the hope she would disengage from me as all I wanted to do was relax and play with DD. I replied again “right, ok”. She then continued… “if you made friends with her she wouldn’t bark and then you wouldn’t complain, would you”.

At this point I got irritated as she was pushing an unwanted conversation and also implying I had “complained” when I’d had one interaction with her about this a whole year ago where I’d threatened to complain but not followed that through, and also not mentioned the dog to her since.

I replied: “I just want to enjoy my garden with my DD. I don’t want to have to make friends with a dog through the fence. If your dog is barking constantly it’s because you aren’t training her properly, and that’s up to you to address. It’s not down to other people to make friends with your dog”.

It was more than I wanted to invest in the interaction but to be honest she had annoyed me by that point.

She then said, randomly, “how old is your daughter now?” I replied with her age. In between I was playing with DD and interacting with her, hoping neighbour would get the hint that I didn’t want to engage with her. She then said “what’s her name?” I replied with her name. Just one word answers to try to end it. She then said “ok. I just thought we could be friends that’s all”. Then she (presumably) walked off back to her house (like I say, limited visibility through the fence).

The whole interaction was just so random. Firstly I hadn’t commented on her dog, I was minding my own business and playing with DD. Also a whole year has passed since our last interaction so why approach me now? It would have made sense if I’d complained there and then about the dog, but I’d said nothing. I was just ignoring it as I usually do.

If it’s relevant this isn’t a next door neighbour as such. It’s hard to explain but we are a detached house and her back garden and mine back share a boundary fence. Our houses are nowhere near each other and are actually on separate streets. I am friends with my next door neighbour, by choice, who is lovely. I have no desire to be friends with this other neighbour or her dog.

Was I mean or unreasonable to not want to be friends with either her or her dog? When I'm in my garden I just want to relax and enjoy my garden and my daughter. Is this reasonable? Also, should random people be expected to befriend dogs, or is the onus on the owners to stop the barking regardless?

Any thoughts welcomed.

You're completely mad. She was holding out an olive branch, trying hard to be nice, being friendly and polite and you can't be fucking bothered to engage with her and find a solution to your problem? Carry on enjoying your moaning and barking dog then because you just blew your chance for reconciliation....

My neighbour has dogs and one barks every time it hears me in the garden despite me stroking it and talking to it when I see it.
So it knowing me makes no
difference to the barking.
Some dogs will bark at anything that moves.

However my neighbour is a decent dog owner and tells the dog to stop or takes it inside if it won’t come away from the fence.
She doesn’t let it disturb the neighbours.

As in you are cold and lacking in awareness. As others have pointed out. Sometimes it's about playing the long game, forgiving someome who maybe didn't present the best version of themselves and being pleasant for the sake of keeping the peace and good neighbourly relations. Don't act like you don't know what this means. It just makes you look worse and more unpleasant than you already are

To be honest, although I agree about the barking being her responsibility to train, you sound like the neighbour from hell yourself. Last year you "had a word with her through the fence" - and I can imagine how that went just by what you have said on this thread. So I'm going to bet that however "nasty" she may have been, you also weren't innocent and probably instigated it all. After all, POLITE people at least go around and knock on the door and have a civilised conversation in the first instance. They don't yell through the fence at their neighbour. So a year later she tries to make some peace. And you were rude. Full stop. I doubt she'll make any further effort. I also doubt she'll do anything about the dog barking at you either. You could have used the opportunity to spend five minutes trying to make the peace and find a resolution that would be good for you. Now she has every right to ignore you and whatever you want.

@Jalisco

Except you seem to have just invented that I "shouted" through the fence last year. I did not.

. I doubt she'll make any further effort.

GOOD. This is what I want. To be left alone. 😂

@Cheeseandlobster

I'm not "acting" like anything. I have never before heard that expression and it somewhat amused me. 😂

I don't want "reconciliation", though!!! I don't want anything from her. I just want to be left alone by her. It's not hard to understand.

you sound like the neighbour from hell yourself

Oh yeah proper neighbour from hell, me.

Just keep myself to myself and like to enjoy a quiet life and sit in my garden playing with my little one. Mother fucking nightmare that is, innit.

🙄

Now she has every right to ignore you

I can't emphasise this enough but .... GOOD!!!!

Let's hope she does and then we'll all be happy. 😄

You shouldn't laugh, you really. You aren't coming across well in your posts at all.

You shouldn't have agreed to talk if you werent going to talk, thats just mean.

Mental isn't it?!

Sorry you're going through similar.

You asked….it wasn’t ideal of her, but I do think she was trying to take a moment to ease things. I have a dog and while you don’t have to befriend it and of course she should train and control the dog, but she is not wrong that being perceived as a friendly would probably solve the barking problem.
I don’t think you were under any obligation to engage this woman you clearly dislike, but I think she was making an effort you rebuffed. I actually think it might have been kinder to just be direct and say I don’t want to talk now, rather than the slightly passive aggressive thing, but really it seems like a nonevent.

@Pixiedust1234

I couldn't give a flying fuck how I'm "coming across" anonymously to strangers on an Internet forum.

What matters is my real life relationships. With my family, friends, my ONE lovely neighbour, and any other relationships that matter to me.

. I actually think it might have been kinder to just be direct and say I don’t want to talk now,

Yes. I've conceded that this might have been the better option. But in the moment it felt mean to say "no" when she asked "can I talk to you". So I went with brief platitudes to see if she picked up the hint. She didn't. So yes, next time I'll say "no thank you" to all unwanted interaction from the start, since that's much more polite than at least trying to engage even if you don't want to.

How nasty that poor lady

Not about a dog, is this?

Neighbour offered an olive branch & you torched it.
Very English. They seem to specialise in "Never Forgive !"

I don't see anything wrong on your side, OP.

Agreeing to be talked to was both polite and giving the neighbor a chance to say something sensible. If the neighbor wanted to improve relationship, they can make effort to limit the barking. Instead, she went with the idea of "making friends" with the dog which is just lame and shifting effort and blame. After that it had become clear that further discussion was useless and therefore it was kept short.

I'm very in favour of the theory that someone else complained and that she thinks it was you.

Haven’t RTFT. but since you asked, I think you were unnecessarily unfriendly.

As for what I would have done differently, I would have smiled. I would have asked her what her dog is called and asked what she means by making friends? I would explain that I don’t like dogs, but if there’s anything easy I can do to help solve the situation I would be happy to try (perhaps dog just needs to be familiar with your smell? You could give it an old pair of your socks, or something like that). I would then move on to some small talk about the weather or the house, and finish by smiling and saying “nice talking to you, and thanks for being understanding about the dog. I hope we can find a way to stop the barking”.

OP, you've not done anything wrong at all.

The reason people are attacking you is because you've been vociferous in defending yourself, and unfortunately on MN that's a red flag to a bull. Some people just really relish a pile-on and lick their chops at the possibility of a fight.

There was a dreadful thread here recently about an autistic girl who'd been sexually assaulted, lots of sympathy, until one poster (who's known for being very blunt) said she'd was asking to be raped. The OP got very heated and argued back and defended herself, and it completely changed the tone of the thread. Just because she'd argued back everyone else started piling on, because they smelled blood in the water.

I bet anything some of the posters being so touchy have out of control dogs and are projecting onto the neighbour.

The neighbour didn't "offer an olive branch". She came and shouted a rude, passive aggressive remark over a high fence (and people are suggesting the OP should have smiled - is the OP supposed to grin inanely at a fence when the person on the other side couldn't actually see her??) and blamed the neighbour for her out of control dog.

Are people missing the fact the dog has been constantly barking - at everyone - for a full YEAR? The dog is obviously out of control, and clearly the neighbour has no intention of doing anything about it.

Poster “AIBU?”
mumsnet “yes”
poster “no I’m not”

why ask the question then?

poor woman, I bet it took an awful lot of courage to do that.

I hate yappy dogs for the record, but it sounds like you’ve got a young child and she’s trying to take action to get the dog to quieten down for you - she’s probably been given some misguided advice somewhere that if the dog knows or understands it’s friends on the other side of the fence it’ll be a little less defensive. She might just give up bothering now, I’m not sure I could be arsed to put in effort training out a behaviour for someone who had been so rude to me.

you reap what you sow Op

As a neighbour of a yappy dog and a useless owner, YANBU, there's been every excuse under the sun.

Seems to be the case when inexperienced owners get puppies and don't put the effort in to train them.

Yes she may not want to bother, but then she may not realise how easy it actually is to achieve - I find when I explain it, people are blown away, its a little bit of management and a lot of sausage.

i took my VERY yappy smallbreed dog (really, known for it, gobby little gits) from barking at every gnats fart the day we moved here (from a semi with a big garden to a mid terrace with a small yard and LOUD neighbours on both sides)... to ignoring all neighbour noise in under two weeks!

But it is SHE who must do it - if you give her dog treats or befriend her dog, yes theres a slim chance the dog may think 'Oh. It's just OP... no need to bark at them' OR they may think 'WAHEY ITS MY NEW FRIEND, WOOF WOOF WOOF NEW FRIEND'.

The fact there is a solid barrier in the way exacerbates the issue, it ramps up frustration and with frustration comes.. barking!

She needs to 1/ Not let the dog out unsupervised. 2/ Pair EVERY sound she hears out there with a super high value treat (this dog is going to be rammed full of treats, she will need to cut down meals in a bowl, and ensure treats are cut up tiny, but they MUST be high value, cheese, sausage etc, bits of kibble will not cut it!).

As time goes on, the sounds become a predictor for something nice, the emotional response changes (classical conditioning, pavlovian response here, hear sound = get treat) from startle to 'ooh nice' and the dog looks to the OWNER as thats where the treats come from.

Then they can start to fade out the 'every single time' to 'most times' and the 'just for hearing a noise' criteria to 'hear a noise and come to me if i ask/sit/gimme a paw' (whatever is easy) so that the outcome of hearing a noise remains good but now its variable, that makes the association stronger.

Eventually after a couple of weeks, she'll be able to let the dog out without such close supervision (she'll still need to be nearby and have treats), within a month she shouldn't need many treats each day, within a couple of months, she should really only need to strongly reinforce odd noises, someone shouting, someone dropping stuff, and she can call the dog to her for that (so she can call the dog inside and reward).

Feel free to copy and paste that and give it to her, its not fun worrying that the neighbours will report a noise nuisance, nor is it fun living next to a noise nuisance or even just unpredictable, sudden barking even if it doesn't constitute a noise nuisance!

YABVU. You did complain to her. She's trying to be nice and resolve the situation and you were unfriendly and rude for no reason. It wouldn't kill you to pet the dog and be civil to your neighbor would it. I'm sure your child makes noise, like her dog does. Noise happens, there's no need for you to be rude.

No. No one should be expected to pet someone else's dog if they don't want. It is very entitled and rude from the dog owners to expect it from others.

I don't believe that the neighbor reacts now on that year old complaint.