To report my neighbour's dog without speaking to them first?

[Applescruffle]

My neighbours bring their dog outside on a lead every single morning at 6:15am without fail. Even weekend and bank holidays. It barks from the minute they open their door, as they walk down their drive, undo their gates, walk down the street, bark bark bark bark. Every morning I hear it and then hear it fade away as they walk down the street. This is usually how I am woken up and how my day starts. Sometimes it's earlier, the other day it was 5:55am.
In addition to this, they bring it out the front on a lead at several intervals throughout the day, and quite often though the night too. It's never not barking when it's out. Recent examples are 1:30am, 4:10am, and 2:15am. It's so loud, it echos around the street. At these times, they often don't even walk it, they just stand at the end of their drive with it.
It pulls and pulls at the lead while barking, almost dragging them along the street. It seems to very clearly have no training whatsoever. They did have another dog (I posted about that one here too) but they couldn't handle it as it was too aggressive so they got rid of it and we all had a few months of peace thinking it was over, now they have this one and it's just as bad so clearly the issue is them.
Anyway, after the 1:30am incident our children have asked us to do something about it as it's waking them up and affecting their concentration at school. I was ready to go round and speak to them but my husband stopped me and said I should just report them to the council instead so they won't know who it is and can't cause any problems for us.
So I have submitted a full report to the local council, with dates, times and recordings.
I feel really guilty though because surely the neighbourly thing to do would have been to speak to them but maybe my husband is right and also surely anyone who is fine with letting their dog make all that racket in their front garden in the early hours of the morning is not a reasonable person and so is not going to respond reasonably?

I fully expect my neighbours not to be walking a barking dog and waking my kids in the middle of the night. This is not acceptable!

I feel like this person must surely not have read my entire post. I wasn;t even asking if their behaviour is OK, I know it's not. I was asking if I was unreasonable to report without speaking to them first.
Clearly waking up your whole at 1:30am for anything less than an emergency or a one off accident is never OK.

Talking will do nothing. No one is going to fundamentally change their approach to training and caring for their dogs, or rehome it, just because a neighbour complained.

Unfortunately any decent dog owner wouldn’t behave like this so you know they’re not going to have the decency to respond to a friendly word from a neighbour.

People need to protect themselves and sometimes that means making an anonymous complaint down the appropriate channels rather than risking starting a conflict with someone who clearly isn’t considerate or reasonable.

IMO if a dog can’t be stopped barking to the extent of annoying neighbours then it should be rehomed. Shrugging and saying it can’t be helped, it’s a dog, is not an appropriate response. If dog = incessant barking, then there is no place for that dog in a domestic setting.

Just to give an idea of how bloody loud it is;
I can hear it barking right now. There is a lawnmower going next door. I am in the conservatory at the back of my house, my conservatory doors into the living room are closed, there is then a large living room with the windows and doors closed, then a large front lawn, and the dog is on the other side of the street. I can still hear it clear as a bell.
Imagine that echoing round the street at 1:30am

What a stupid answer. Enforce the law which is part of their job? It’ll start out with a written warning which will escalate to fines, police involvement for anti social behaviour, seizure of the dogs and potentially prison if there’s a repeated breaking of the asbo? There’s someone in my old street who has had this happen and had two lovely dogs seized and ultimately euthanised

You were right not to bother talking to them.

You let neighbours know if their dog is barking while home alone. They may not be aware otherwise. These arseholes know. They know it's loud, they know it's the middle of the night... they don't care.

Hope it all goes well with the complaint.

Your neighbours are arseholes. Obviously you know this. I doubt that talking to them would have done any good because they are too self absorbed to care about the needs of others. So it's perfectly fine that you have gone straight to the Council.

that will be one pretty amazing Council if they actually send an officer out for 1.30 am in the morning to witness a noise nuisance.

If I'd be them, I'd think what a lovely neighbourhood I live in.. In my opinion it's coward move to not talk to them and report them instead. What do you know, maybe they are as frustrated with their dog as you are. Maybe they tried every trainer in the area, tried every possible claiming method and nothing works. Not every dog is a silent one. Consider yourself lucky they don't have Husky. I'm not interested in an argument, but I'd say you never had a dog, did you? You might be more reasonable then.

@Miselka666 'I'd think what a lovely neighbourhood I live in"

... which I will do my very best to spoil for others by failing to train the dog I chose to bring into our home.

When did I say they don't have a husky?

And I have owned several dogs. I own one right now, he was a rescue dog, and used to reactively bark at absolutely everything because of his abusive past. We have put a lot of time and effort into correcting him and traning him and now he does not bark anyone near as much and never barks on walks, only occasionally at the door. I certainly do not bring him outside at 1:30am and stand in my front garden with him while he barks the street down. I also do not refuse to use my huge back garden and instead stand out the front, behind a gate, with him on a lead for long periods, leading to frustrated barks, because I have half a brain.

So try again.

And quite honestly, it's extremely clear that they haven't tried every last method because they do the exact same thing every bloody day.

Then, as an experienced dog owner, go and talk to your neighbours about it, since you know so well how they might feel or where they might do some mistakes, and ask if you can help them in any way, instead being arse and anonymously report them to council.

You think this is acceptable?!

OP that’s awful! Have you recorded it on your phone?

Well then the nice neighbourly thing to do would be for the owners of the noisy dog to go round to their neighbours, apologise for the noise and explain all the things they are doing to to try to fix the issue. Maybe take some wine, some earplugs etc as an apology

But instead the neighbours are being anti social by taking a noisy dog out in the middle of the night and the early morning. So the option if the OP knocks on their door is she might end up being bullied by her neighbours.

If the neighbours had been nice and neighbourly first, then people might be more inclined to speak to them

Question wasn't what is or isn't acceptable, but if they should speak to neighbour about the issue prior reporting them to council. And to be perfectly honest, the whole thread is pointless as it's been already reported to council and just then it was posted here-most likely in a hope others will pet her on back saying she was right to do it. Well, I respectfully disagree, as it's my right to do in discussion.

Neighbour might not realise that their washing machine noise travels so it it fair enough to talk to them about doing their washing between acceptable hours. Dog barking outside is not something the owner doesn't realise that bothers people so reporting it is totally fine.

If we'd be all bright and reasonable towards our neighbours, none of such online discussions would be existing. It is never a solution to say if they would do/didn't do, I would do/didn't do. I'm not defending neighbours with barking arse dog, neither lady reporting them to council. If I try to send a message here, it would be about being just normal human beings, don't hide behind phones and anonymous reports and talk to each other. It might end same-she would go and report them to council. But at least she would have absolutely clear conscience that she tried to speak, tried to offer help, discuss it as normal people living next to each other. Because if she would do it in first instance she wouldn't start a discussion here about if she did right or wrong thing to report them and not talking to them. That's my point.

I would report without speaking to them. If you speak to them first and they do nothing and you have to then report, they'll know it was you.

Oh and big sympathy to you. Sounds absolutely hideous

Reporting a barking dog is unlikely to result in any action being taken anyway, just a lip-service person sent from the council to ask them if it’s barking or if you are lucky witness it barking. They will be sent leaflets with tips on how to stop it barking, but if it’s not barking ALL DAY long incessantly, there is little they can do. They might issue a fine if it continues after the council visit, but unlikely. And then your neighbour might start looking for petty reasons to report you for various things.
I would speak to the neighbour first. But saying that, they will already know the dog is barking anyway.

Some of the usual lovely pass-agg MN replies. Oh yay. 🙄It's not a 'dick move' or a 'coward move' not to talk to these neighbours. People who knowingly stand outside their house two, three times in the middle of the night allowing their dog to bark so loudly do not sound at all like the type of people who'll be amenable to reason and civil discourse. 'Oh, you mean it bothers you that Rover barks loud enough to wake the dead at 1am, 2am, 4am and 5.30am? Oh gosh, we never thought! Of course we'll stop doing it immediately!' 🙄 To me, they sound like the kind of people who might resent you even raising the matter, and might escalate the situation by retaliating against you in some way.

I think you've done the right thing, OP. I had issues with noise at night last year, and the noise abatement officer at the local council was great and it got dealt with pretty quickly. I wouldn't talk to these neighbours, I'd let the council do what they're meant to do.

You say you're not defending neighbpurs with a barks arse dog but you are. You defended them when you said maybe they are trying etc etc and now you're just backpeddling.
The fact is if they were reasonable they would let it out the back at 1:30am like a reasonable person instead of letting it drag them around their front garden barking it's head off.

Report OP, don't bother talking to them. How it worked for me is I put in a noise complaint on the council's website, then they phoned me and asked me to describe the noise and when it happened. They gave me a link to an app called The Noiseapp or something like that, and you record every time and it's sent to the council with timestamps and for the duration of the barking. Then they sent a letter to my neighbour.

I sympathise with you, the noise was making me very anxious and on edge and I couldn't sleep worrying about waking up to the noise. Better to nip it in the bud.

You should speak to your neighbours.
Your husband sounds a wimp BTW.
Poor children. Send them to bed earlier lol 😆