How much barking is too much?

[KeepLosingThings]

One neighbour has a dog that barks in the garden, 4 times a day, about 2 mins each time, between 9am and 9pm.

Bark is very loud.

Houses are detached but close together

Other neighbour has a bit of a go and says this is causing significant mental distress.

Who is being unreasonable?

Will tell you later which neighbour I am, so these are at random:

YANBU - this is an unacceptable level of noise and it was fair to complain

YABU - this is an acceptable level of neighbourhood noise

Well done MsBette! Please please could you tell me (a) exactly what you did and (b) how much time you reckon I need to put in to achieve this? (I know that's probably different for every dog). Thank you!

A dog who is barking for 2 minutes solid whenever they go into the garden is not a happy dog. My neighbour’s dog did this and he was clearly properly nervous. 8 years of that did my head in because it showed he was not doing anything to help the dog be less nervous.

Any barking is too much. So annoying

Dogs bark, that’s what they do. 8 minutes isn’t that much, especially broken up. Are we expecting silent dogs now?

I’d just be thankful it wasn’t more than that and it wasn’t at 5am!

It seems more like frustration in this case. He really wants to get to the squirrels and the birds but they won't come down and play with him!

This. That’s the problem. It’s day after day of grating noise. You can train a dog not to go this so that’s what the owners should be doing. My neighbours have managed it with their incredibly barky dog. Rarely hear it now.

PlutarchHeavensbee - that’s awful for the dog - can’t even move about! Report the selfish tw@@t!

I would love 8 mins a day. I have a neighbour with 5 dogs. 3 are in cages. They whine constantly. The other 2 bark when anyone passes the garden. They seem to be immune to it.

those dogs turn set off others in the estate. Then have a dog chorus.

the neighbours are quite aggressive when asking them to calm it down. Council don’t care.

I want to live in a dog free street

Is this for real?

It's here and there through the day so it's not too unreasonable and you're trying to do something about it.

For a lot of us with sensory issues, loud dog barking is unbearable, but if it's limited to bit of barking here and there then that's our cross to bear. Its a bit like a child screaming unbearable noise but its going to happen at times.

Problem is the owners who just don't give a shit

Are you saying your neighbour tells you she hears your dog bark 4 times a day? Dogs are meant to bark - as much as some would love to hear no barking full stop. I wouldn't give it another second's thought, if it's not incessant barking. No, it's not normal to train your dog not to bark. It's normal to minimise the barking.

🙄

The problem is when owners leave their dog outside barking. If it's barking it should be moved inside or engaged with to stop.

I don't mean for 5 mins exercise but when it's kept in the yard/garden.

That’s not necessarily true at all. Lots of dogs bark because they can hear or see wildlife, or the neighbours, or because they’re playing, or out of habit, or even just for fun.

Yes, I totally agree with that. I go out to mine when they start. Problem is, as you can see from this thread, some bizarre people don't expect dogs to bark at all.

What you might find helpful is clicker training. A training session would give you the basics, or there will be advice online. You could try engaging with your dog in the garden e.g. doing training, playing games, sniffing out a handful of food, to try and break the association between outside and barking at squirrels. Dogs Trust is fairly good for resources, I’ve just found this https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/dog-advice/training/unwanted-behaviours/stop-your-dog-barking

Honestly though it doesn’t sound excessive. I deliberately chose a quiet breed as I can’t stand it myself lol but next doors barks like it’s a competition all day. It’s actually more annoying hearing them yelling him inside every half an hour.

Don’t worry too much, it’s a fixable issue. Good luck!

Same here, our neighbour have a dog that yaps a lot. Feels like all day long sometimes. I'm sure they leave it out there on its own.

So when we have friends round I don't really care that we are loud in the garden, or when the kids get a bit rowdy!

Op's dog barks so frequently that she wouldn't be alerted to an intruder. It's the story of the boy who cried wolf. If there was a real intruder she'd just think "pongo must have seen a squirrel" and ignore him (or half-heartedly try to recall him) for two minutes.

Get a properly qualified trainer, who among other things can explain better than I can why treat training is NOT reinforcing bad behaviour. If your dog has no recall, that’s the first thing you need to work on, and you’ll need to reward the dog to do it.

I’m coming from both sides of the fence, so to speak. I’ve had to train my dog not to react to the neighbour’s barking dog, and it hasn’t been easy as the neighbour has not been helpful. In fact she decided that as I was training my dog, my dog was the problem. You don’t sound like my belligerent neighbour, so I’m sure if any neighbours are annoyed they’ll be at least a little placated by you making the effort.

On the noise nuisance front, people tend to assume the noise has to go on for hours, or be at certain times. While those things are automatically considered nuisance, the criteria is that it interferes with a neighbour’s enjoyment of their home. My local council considered the fact that I have had to toilet my dog on lead for an extended period of time due to my neighbour’s refusal to train/control her dog to meet that criteria. She is about to get a Noise Nuisance order based on the inconvenience she’s causing to me as a dog owner living next door.

Find a good trainer, and follow their advice. It will make your life so much easier in the long run. Good luck.

Dogs being allowed to bark like this is so annoying. Happy dogs don’t do it. it’s stressed and territorial as it doesn’t know its place. Simply put its bad ownership.

I’m enduring this - and I’m about to go full sonic sound blaster which will be hell fir the dog and it’s not even the dogs fault

I have a barky dog (and another dog who is literally silent!)

I don’t think I’ve ever let her bark for two minutes, once she barks she knows it’s in the house time. To get her in I go outside and sort of round her up so that her only option is inside.

She just likes to bark at noises and obviously in the garden there’s a lot more noises! Generally she’s only allowed in the garden supervised.

Four times a day is not so frequent that she wouldn’t realise there was an intruder!

Do you have a terrier by any chance? If so, keep him/ her on a long line and play chase with a flirt pole. Engage their instincts. The dog keeps rehearsing that when they go outside, they bark incessantly. You want to show them that it’s much more fun to play with you.

The barking would annoy me doesnt matter how long it is if its every single day on repeat it does ur head in and I bet its longer than 2 minutes. Bad owner in my opinion that let's a dog yap repeatedly for 2 minutes every time it is let out

It’s delusional to think a dog would bark 2 mins at a time ‘only’ 4 times a day and be quiet the rest of the day. I bet it’s way more