To put anonymous letter through neighbours door about their dog

[Whatisgoingonheredear]

A neighbour has a little dog that barks all day, for ages.
Starts at about 6am. Runs outside, barks for about 5 minutes solid.
Will happen throughout the day, including if anyone walks past, pulls up, if anyone has a delivery, if anyone goes to their car or bin. Usually does it's last round of barking at about 10 - 10.30pm. Barks when leaving for walks and when arriving back from walks.

It's been grinding on me for a while but is now seriously pissing me off. I'm not sure if they're blind to it. It isn't one or two barks and will go on for minutes at a time. When they first got this dog they'd occasionally say "no" or "stop" (which obviously didn't work) but I am not sure if they have made any other attempts to do anything about this.

I am dreadful with any sort of confrontation and would prefer to put an anonymous note through the door, saying I am not sure if they realise the frequency of the barking and is there anything they could do to please reduce this.

I also really feel for the dog as it must be constantly on edge.

WIBU to do this? I don't want to report to the council.

Why don’t you want to report to the council?

Why don’t you want to report to the council?

I'd rather give them a chance to sort it out than log an official noise complaint. The neighbours are nice people themselves and I don't think they realise how much this is effecting others. I'd prefer they had a chance to remedy this before going to the council, which is more drastic.

They did have another dog a few years ago that did this (very old so think he/she died), I'm not sure if they're deaf to it.

From personal experience it's a bit shitty making someone paranoid and suspect the entire street. If you're going to do it go through the council, that's anonymous anyway. Someone put an anonymous note through my door once threatening to poison my dog. Unfortunately for them I knew exactly who it was so I put an anonymous note through his door saying that I'd worry more about the police finding out he sells crack.

But a noise complaint DOES give them a chance to sort it out. All that happens is they just make them aware of it and the potential consequences.

The only experience I have of anyone I know reporting anything to the council was my mum, who reported her neighbour when they got a rooster that crowed at the crack of dawn every day (built up area). The council sent my mum the noise complaint letter, and the neighbour got the letter thay said "Dear Mrs X, thank-you for reporting nuisance noise coming from [neighbours address]" so I don't trust the competency! The likelihood of this happening again isn't high but it is worrying.

As someone who has been on the receiving end of one of these letters and actually as the months have gone on, I think they’ve got the wrong dog because mine does not bark!?

but please knock on the door and speak to them. It broke my heart that my relatively new neighbours didn’t feel they could do that. I’m so friendly to everybody but they took the time to type and send first class (I have a ring doorbell) and I was so so hurt. I’d much rather they’d spoken to me or dropped a note saying hi lady at number 12, your dog barking is becoming an issue can we have a chat. Or similar .

I was woken up this morning at 6am by my neighbours dog barking in the garden and it’s happening more frequently, particularly at the weekend.

really pisses me off actually as they’re retired. I work full time and sleep is important to me at the weekend.

I am going to go round and say something in person as I’m actually raging this morning and I now have a massive headache. Selfish twats!!!

Anon letters are weaselly and cowardly.

Just talk to them.

Speak to them, if there are other neighbours you can frame it that you are doing them a favour by this, as some people would just report it to the council or RSPCA.

Talk to them
Chat to other neighbours and encourage them to Talk to the neighbour as well
The more people complain directly, the better.
The dog needs training, it must be very annoying for everyone.

I’ve had an anonymous letter from a neighbour. Never felt comfortable again tbh, in the entire 9 years I lived there.

just go and talk to them.

If it's a noise complaint it's the council. RSPCA can't do anything about a noise complaint.

Op, just go and speak to them. It's much nicer than an anonymous note.

Aside from the awkwardness of the times it doesn't seem that it is barking for the entire day. They may be completely blind to it. I think an anonymous note is shitty and gutless. Put on your big girl pants and knock on the door and just calmly explain that the dog is annoying you. 6am sounds so early if they are needing to let it out at that time they could take it for a walk instead of having it yapping around the garden.

Also they will probably see the letter is from you as a lot of people have ring cameras now so maybe better just to speak to them.

I can understand how hard it would be to mention it to your neighbours. But if, as you say, they are nice people, they SHOULD be able to respond reasonably to a polite raising of the problem.

When dog owners respond badly in these sorts of situations, I think it is often because they are already anxious about their dog's misbehaviour, so that they instantly become panicky and defensive when it is pointed out. They allow themselves to become unreasonable in response to the tension and stress of the situation.

The key thing would be to find a form of words that has a good chance of avoiding this sort of response. If you have the right form of words ready, it will also help your confidence.

I'm just trying to think what words would work. Perhaps begin with a sentence of smalltalk about the weather or whatever. Then, rather than saying something that is directly about the dog, mention how the barking affects you. That way, it might be less likely to be heard as a criticism, and more likely to be heard as a situation that requires some co-operation.

If there is some level of defensiveness in their response, they may well also hear the reasonableness of your words and begin to try and deal with the problem.

If they're nice. Why can't you just go & talk to them?

Just to add, there may be a bit of blindness on your neighbours' part. When my previous dog was very elderly, he developed dementia and one feature of this was that he would stand and bark aimlessly when I let him out for his morning wee.

To my shame, after 15 years of the routine of letting him out, I didn't really register the gradually change towards problematic behaviour until I saw a neighbour bang on his bedroom window to try and interrupt the barking.

God knows why I was so insensitive. Something to do with the slow creep of the change I suppose.

Anyway, I instantly stopped the problem. As I recall, I put him on the lead for his early morning garden visits, to make sure that it was just a short and silent wee.

This. Do it face to face! Be an adult. Nothing in your post indicates they’re difficult people and it sounds like they’re probably unaware.

We’ve got a council letter before about our dogs. Although wasn’t actually our dogs was the neighbours as it annoyed us too.

But my anxiety went through the roof and I was really ill from it as I get watched on our own street. I couldn’t leave the house because I was so worried whoever reported us was watching my every move.

Don’t write a note. Either speak to them face to face or report to the council. I have a similar issue (my council has a noise patrol). All my comms with them have been by email (complaints) or phone when they come out to investigate . They won’t bother sending you a letter.

This
And then you'll look like a right idiot

Unless this is happening when they aren’t in? They obviously know the dog is barking a lot and clearly don’t care

Thing is if you speak to them and they don’t take any action, and you then go the council
they will know it was you 🤷‍♀️

This worked (completely accidentally) in my case
I bumped into the dog owner socially in a neutral place, I just asked “not sure, but is it your dog that wakes me at x time in the mornings and at x time at night”? (said in a pleasant neutral manner).
The owner said no it wasn’t her dog - but the noise stopped permanently as of the next day.

I think the owner appreciated being made aware of the nuisance directly, rather than the council becoming involved.

If it's a guarding breed, it may not be possible for them to train the dog to be completely quiet under all the circumstances you mention. If someone comes to the door, my GSD will bark for a couple of minutes. We've managed to train her out of barking in the garden and not to look out of windows and get triggered by everything outside that moves. I'm sure it pisses off one of my neighbours who expects everyone to live in complete silence, but if you live in a residential area, you do need to accept there will be some level of noise with kids playing and dogs barking etc.

Personally I would speak to them and see whether they can work on minimising the number situations in which the dog barks. I think if you report to the council, it may count as a neighbour dispute that you need to declare if you sell your house in the future.

Talk to them, or if you can't face that, at least sign the note so they know who it;s from.

I’ve had a similar letter and it was very upsetting. If the person had talked to me I could have told them about all of the training and meditation we were using and how we were working to stop the situation. Instead they put an anonymous letter through the door that gave no way to respond and felt really cowardly.

If you can’t talk to them then maybe write a signed note that allows you to raise the issue, avoid the first conversation about it but opens the door for a follow-up conversation if you or your neighbours want to discuss it further.