Dog owners with whistles

[Dontwakeme]

My House and garden backs onto a beautiful walking park area with path . I love seeing people over my fence out walking , enjoying the flowers etc. No issue, lived here 15 years no problems. However this summer a couple have taken to training their poor little dog with a high pitch whistle right outside the rear of my property EVERY SINGLE MORNING AND EVENING AT 8am and 8pm.
they both stand right outside about 30 feet away from each other whistling back and forth while the poor dog tries to figure out what the hell they want him to do.
The high pitch noise goes absolutely through me and I am sick of it, it disturbs putting my kids to bed as I have to listen to the toddler ask what’s that 19374783 times everytime they hear it. So yes it’s a public park I get that but AIBU to find this so annoying that these people have picked right outside my garden as their favourite spot?
my options to deal with this,
1: go out to park when they are there and kindly ask them to change up their training location now and again?
2.Spray paint/ poster onto the back of my fence “ no whistles”
3.buy a whistle and every time they blow theirs I blow mine - passive aggressive at it’s best.
any other creative suggestions welcome!

I would go out and politely ask if they could vary their location!
I use a dog whistle... off lead in fields miles away from anyone, but I'd never use one in a residential area!!! It sounds like they are training the dog, but it's quite reasonable to ask them to move away.

If they persist... option 3

4, follow them home and blow a whistle repeatedly outside at 6am the next day?

Buy them a proper dog whistle. Humans can't hear them.

They’re in a public park and trying to train their dog?

From being on mumsnet it appears there are millions of untrained dogs hooning around, so surely we’ll done to these people for regularly training their new pup.

And the other thing I’ve learned from mumsnet is that people shouldn’t expect silence in their gardens whether it be hot tubs, kids on trampolines or whatever else. So I would say if you want silence maybe don’t live next to a public park?

It is a public area. They are not a nuisance if they are subsisting after a while.

Proper dog whistles can be heard. What a ridiculous statement.

So everyone wants immaculately trained dogs but people cant train them?

The whistles mean nothing to YOU but I can assure you mine knows the difference between 5 different whistle patterns.

And those whistles tell him to stop, turn, come back, hunt and sit at distance.

That training takes time and practice. Alternatively, maybe they can just be crap owners who don't bother training their dog.

Buy a house next to a park, there's going to be the following:

Noisy kids
teenagers in evening
Dogs

Acme make some of the most 'proper' dog whistles' going, and you can certainly hear those!

OP, I'd have a pleasant chat to them. Also point out that they need to vary where they train to proof the behaviour in different environments, with different distractions.

Option 1 definitely. Be polite and reasonable with them, be friendly and jokey about it and they should be the same back. They probably haven't even considered the impact they are having on you and are probably just creatures of habbit who shouldn't have an issue with mixing up the spot as you suggest x

I completely get that it’s annoying, but 8am and 8pm aren’t exactly antisocial hours and I think this is the kind of thing you probably do have to accept if your house backs on to a public park.

I also live next to a huge park and although dog whistles have yet to be an issue, I used to wake regularly at 7am to the sound of a fitness trainer shouting at his outdoor boot camp class. The thing is, he wasn’t actually anywhere near our house; we could barely even see him from the window, but somehow while he and his press-upping, high-kneeing victims were barely more than dots in the distance, he sounded like he was in our back garden. He must have had a voice like a jet engine for it to carry like that.

You must have bloody good hearing then because they are designed to work on the spectrum of sound that humans cannot hear. I have a silent dog whistle, and I can barely hear a thing when I blow it, never mind someone who is many yards away hearing it. There are a number of them on the market.

You might have a silent one but I can assure every gundog trainer and owner out there has an Acme whistle at varying pitch depending on the breed.

I have spaniels at 210.5, other breeds have different ones.

They're all audible to humans.

Depends if they are doing it on purpose, specifically outside your house? If they are then get a whistle and do it outside theirs 😀

Ask if they can move. That’s extremely annoying! I only whistle if mine are out of sight-3 pips=recall.

They will be here in about 20 mins time and will stay for at least 30 mins and in that time I’d say maybe 100 blows of a whistle. I have no clue about dog training.. obviously. For those who do how long a process is this and will they use the whistle indefinitely?!!

Strength and solidarity because of the toddler. Even the most reasonable and rational behaviours become unbearable when you have a toddler questioning them on loop. “What’s that noise” is in my top ten least favourite of all the questions.

At least there will be one trained dog in the public park near you 😅

That’s ridiculous. Constantly blowing the whistle at the dog without actually teaching it what it means is just confusing for the dog and teaching it to ignore it.

Ask them if they might perhaps consider going to an actual dog training class instead.

Many owners use whistles for life, but the training doesn't have to be constant. It depends what they're trying to train and how good they are at it.

Yep, my whistle is for life. I don't use it at unsociable times, obviously as it'd be rude but my dog is trained to respond to certain cues, which I have taught. That teaching requires repetition in lots of places. Start in garden, then out maybe to local park, then further afield.

I only use it when dog is off lead, clearly so I am not going about the streets, whistle on hand.

I live rurally and most of the gundogs I know are whistle trained. Once my pup is hopefully ready to work a shoot then that's your main way of communicating with the dog along with your body language/signals.

Whistles and clickers for training are far more consistent and achieve better results quicker than voice cues as if you do it right, they get it SO fast.

As for number of pips, it'll depend what they're teaching. So for me 1 pip= sit. 2 = about turn and I signal where dog then needs to go. 4 is recall and a blast is stop!

So it might sound like loads when I do turning drills with him, but each pip pip means turn.

I would very politely ask them they probably don’t realise how annoying it is

Isn’t the whistle less annoying than them yelling the dogs name? I whistle for my spaniel as I found she’s responds much better than when using my voice.

I also find my spaniel responds faster. One recall whistle and he's back but I can shout a few times and he studiously ignores me!

I have just googled 'dog whistles in parks' we too have the same problem. Every morning at 8am for months on end. Constant blowing the whistle near housing is just rude. I blow my whistle back (I don't have a dog) Tho he seems to be a bit thick as he hasn't taken the hint. Hope your whistlers have stopped!

Did you sort it OP?

It’s only for a short time for a few weeks. Far better than badly trained or untrained dogs. You can definitely hear the whistle. The dog might try to pretend it can’t if there are lots of pheasant in the garden, but most adults can hear most whistles.
Either pop up over fence and ask if they mind moving to another area of the park or grin and bear it for a few weeks.