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?

As far as I can make out, and I really don't know them at all, this is just gleaned from other neighbours, they own it. I think it was inherited from one of their mums as another neighbour told me there used to be an older lady loving there and then they moved in with the older lady and she died and they never moved out.
They have had work done on the house which they appear to have been managing themselves so I assume it is theirs.
So council noise complaint really is my only option. I wish it was as simple as going to a landlord or an HA

This would massively piss me off .I love dogs but not barking! My NDN said they forgot we had a dog as they never hear him.As it should be .I would maybe have a quiet word and see if that helps .Council may not do anything .

I did this after weeks of constant dog barking outside at midnight.
I knocked on the door in my nightie and asked if there was a reason the dog was being left to bark in the garden at midnight.

Last night it was quiet so fingers crossed.

What breed of dog is it? it is very odd hours to have the poor dog out on a lead I wonder why they are doing this. If they have a big garden the dog may be calmer if they let it loose to play in it if the garden is secure. I wonder if the dog may be aggressive and they think it may jump the fence.

The council won't do anything.

They will send a letter. A relative got one when they had a visitor with a barking dog (not even at antisocial hours) stay for several months (waiting on house to be finished being built).
To this day relative has no clue who reported her. She was mortified, but the dog owner did at least then make an attempt to keep it quiet.

I did something similar when we lived in a ground floor flat. There was a carpark by the flats and a guy used to pull up in his work van to pick his mate up every morning at 6:30am in the parking space about 3 feet from my bedroom window, van windows down, radio blaring.
I appeared at the door in PJs with a toddler on my hip glaring at him and he stared at me like "wut?" I pointed to my bedroom window and he turned the radio down slowly while staring at me to see if it was that. I turned and walked back into my flat. He never did it again. I didn't even need to say a word 😄
I dunno maybe if that dude didn't realise that blaring music three feet from a bedroom window might be an issue then these people don't realise their dog barking in the street in the middle of the might is an issue 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I mean, people are stupid 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Can you move

Why should I?

I would love to know their logic as to why they are taking it out on a lead all hour's of the night? We have a 7 month old puppy and no chance I'd be getting up through the night. They basically have a new born in dog form!

You must be exhausted too. If you don't feel like you can approach them and speak to them, then I'd just go ahead and report them. If it was 6am every day, it's not ideal but I'd say there wasn't much you could do. But all through the night is antisocial

I love some of these responses saying it’s a dick move to report and maybe it’s just a noisy dog. Maybe some of these posters are the type who think dogs should now be allowed to come into restaurants, shops etc or having an eBay service vest on means they should be allowed on planes.
Op, follow this through as far as you can. We all have the right to quiet in our homes. Their dog is not your problem. Their training issues are not your problem. Your problem is the fact you don’t get a full nights sleep in your own home because your neighbours think little Fluffy isn’t doing any harm yapping and doing what a dog does. If they’re letting it out and not stopping the barking in the early hours, I hardly think they’re going to be up for a nice conversation first.

Is this the same neighbour with a portaloo in their garden?

Gah, that's insane!

I look after dogs for a living (in my home). They go to the toilet at 9pm, and then they are not let out again until 645am. There's no need to be out at 1.30am or 4am, that's just ridiculous.

I do my first walk of the day at about 7.30am, and I creep around the block so as not to wake anyone. There are lots of people who could still be in bed at this time. This week I have a dog here who barks if I leave the house, so I walk him with my first set of dogs, then I put him in my car (which he loves and doesn't bark in), then I walk the second set of dogs, knowing that there is no barking coming from my house.

I started a thread on here a while ago, about the noise that some other people make early in the morning, and it got a mixed bag of responses. It really irks me that I am quiet on those early morning walks, but some people are loudly chatting right next to people's houses, at the crack of dawn! There's one couple in particular that SHOUT their words at 7.30am. WTAF!

Nobody reasonable would not know this is disturbing to others. So given they are such dicks they have made no effort to stop or mitigate (like only letting it do this during hours when most people would be awake) it is highly unlikely they would be reasonable when approached. Council all the way.

get an anti barking machine, they work up to about 40ft

Oh, and I also don't allow any customers to arrive at my home, between 7pm and 7am, because that causes excitement and possible barking!

In answer to your question, I think you've done the right thing.

It's some sort of spaniel I think. It's certainly got a lot of energy.
Their back garden is huge, all the gardens round here are. I have no idea why irs not allowed back there, and it's literally not allowed, DS said he saw it break free of the lead once and run in the back garden and Rory were packing, trying to catch it and stop it from going back there. I can only assume they wither have an immaculate garden they don't qant poo in, or they have chickens. But it certainly seems strange to me to have a big garden like that and not let your dog enjoy it.

Completely reasonable to report them without speaking to them. Any reasonable person knows that having a dog barking in the street at all hours night and day is not okay. If they cared and there was a way for them to stop the dog they’d have done it by now, so either they don’t care or they have no idea how to train the dog. Either way it sounds like the best thing is to get the authorities involved if you can.

Same problem here. Get in well with our neighbours, so I'm reluctant to say anything.
I figure that the dog must be annoying them too, so have been letting it go.
But- drives me mad.

Rhis is supposed to say "they" it autocorrected to Rory.

People’s attitude round here (where I live) is “Well, dogs bark! That’s what they do” 😫

Don’t expect any sense from people that would get a dog and not think to train it.

The other day I saw her do a really feeble little "ssssh" while it was barking its head off. I very much doubt it even heard her.
They couldn't train a hamster 🙄

you are not being unreasonable. As you pointed out, if they were reasonable to begin with they wouldn’t behave like that so perhaps you having a chat with them first may not have even worked. I have a similar situation, my neighbour leaves her dog constantly barking for hours , she’ll be out enjoying herself while hubby and I have to listen to his constant barking. I pointed it out to her before, she asked if the dogs were a problem and I suggested they had separation anxiety, which the one clearly does and she just laughed it off and said he probably does. That was it. She thinks taking him off on a long walk will stop his barking when she fucks off for the evening for hours, leaving her dog alone and upset. Again, terrible dog owner and these people don’t know how (or just too bloody lazy) to train their dogs.

Why was this asked in response to the OP saying she rents?
Why should she move because her neighbours are inconsiderate?
I've seen this attitude before towards renters that they can easily "just move" and uproot their whole lives. Like we don't have the same considerations that owners do like schools, amenities, available properties, financial concerns, or just liking the area and being used to it.
Making the dog owners shpuld move since clearly they don't know how to live amongst other people in a civilised way.

They are very selfish. Have you considered earplugs for sleeping ?

People like this aren't receptive to communication and intelligence. Taking a barking dog out of the house at 130 and 4am just proves they're thick as shit and don't care about anyone around them. Don't feel bad about going straight to the council.