Neighbours dog woke me up - got told it's my fault for having my windows open??

[Sophiehoney]

My neighbours are a retired couple with a very barky dog.
They walk it around our street several times a day, the last walk is around midnight, presumably before they go to bed.
It's very barky and barks all the time on walks, at what? God knows. But I hear it most nights.

Last night it took me ages to fall asleep due to the heat. At 12:15am, just as I was managing to drift off, right in that comfortable place between sleep and awake, it starts right outside my house - BARK BARK BARK BARK. So fucking loud!

I was hot, tired and really pissed off at being jerked awake and I got out of bed, stormed across the room and slammed the windows shut.

I was so annoyed and so hot that it took me until 2am to fall asleep again, and it was a terible sleep in this heat. I get up at 6am and have a full day of work ahead of me.

At 8:15 this morning, as I was leaving with the kids, neighbour comes out of his house with barky-arse dog, barking as usual and I asked him, as politely as I could if he could please do something about the noise at night because it's disturbing us.

He gave a little chuckle and said "well, keep your windows shut, then you won't have to slam them closed" and started to walk away.

I was gobsmacked for a second but then called after him "I shouldn't have to - it was 31° last night, you need to train your dog!" And he just waved a dismissive hand and walked off.

Did I have a right to complain?!

Dog’s persistent barking during night hours (11pm onwards) is ASB. You’ve given him fair warning, he has dismissed it, now report it.

You missed out the reason why.

❤️

My dog, before she went deaf, was a barker and would bark at anything. I always removed her as quickly as I could to try to mitigate the noise.

Yesterday, when it was 30 degrees here, a neighbour had a dog at an open upstairs window barking all morning. My office window was open and I was trying to work and it was seriously aggravating. Just pull the bloody blinds down so the dog can't see whatever is upsetting it!

I used to feel embarrassed about my dog barking on and on but it seems some people just don't care and I don't understand it.

Yeah that also has not a single scrap of wit about it either.

I second the Loop earplugs
But if is was a regular problem I'd be ringing their doorbell in the middle of the night to let them know that their dog is barking

I love the way some MNers get so worked up about a different answer to their own 😆 🤣

https://www.loopearplugs.com/

or equally good (possibly better)

https://hears.com/

Everyone knows that a barking dog at night is antisocial and annoying. He is being rude because he knows his dog is annoying but has no clue how to deal with it, so he is taking out his feelings of inadequacy on you.

How am I worked up?

My fil used to have an empty fairy bottle to squirt at noisy dogs and shitting cats.

Thanks @mimbleandlittlemy

Oh god we have this but at 5am, you did the right thing saying something and what else did he expect at midnight!

I'd be annoyed too and you hear a barking dog passing by when your Windows are shut anyway .

Why on earth would a dog need a midnight walk? ( maybe a bit different currently due to heatwave but a dog can survive without a walk for a few days) Dogs need to sleep at night. My two are in bed at 8pm and we go into the garden at 7am. This chap sounds like he wants to walk at that time rather than barky dog needing a walk. I’d contact environmental health dept or noise control at your local council and make a complaint. I’ve also got barky terriers ( a leaf can set them off) but do everything in my power to mitigate the effect on neighbours. A barking dog at midnight is 100% anti social

They do when it's 31C according to the OP.

It is in the very first sentence of the OP's post that they are retired!

Yes, contact the council for a noise complaint. You've tried raising it politely and his response was inadequate

😆 🤣

I must admit that I sometimes walk my dog at midnight but in my case it's because I come back from a late shift then and she needs a walk. Strangely enough, she is a terrible barker, and barks when she sees the lead, but when it comes to the late night walks she's absolutely silent. Somehow she seems to know that a late walk is a quiet walk, or maybe it's just that it's dark and silent around the village then.

You think that response was 'sharp'?!

Good grief.

If your witty comebacks are at this level I'd look into doing a course or something.

I didn't say they inly walk it during heatwaves though. Its nit a one off heatwave thing. They walk it around midnight every night, they also walk it several times throughout the day including early in the morning (6:30 in winter, can be as early as 5am in the summer) and it always barks. They have a long driveway and neighbour is not quick on his feet (not blaming him for that) and it takes them a while to open the gates the the end of the drive. The dog barks the entire length of the drive, the whole time he is fiddling with the gates, and then I hear it fade away up the street. Quite often, just as I am falling back to sleep I hear it fading back in again as they return home.

Yes, and he probably expected to bump into me as we often come out at the same time in the morning and he would have seen me getting the kids in the car before he left the house. So he even had time to ponder his quick-witted amazing retort. Move over, Lee Mack 🙄

My dog was a barking twat by default. She is ushered indoors at the first bark (which has reduced her barking a lot) but is still not allowed outside between 9pm and 7am because I can't trust her to be silent.

It's called having some fucking consideration for your fellow humans.

Midnight is too late if it barks a lot. It's cool enough by 9pm at least.