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.

My council won't investigate until you have personally tried to resolve yourself.

Go and knock on the door and say you are feeling agitated every time to dog barks as it's happening really frequently and could they please help.

Somebody reported me to the council for something that wasn’t true, they presumably wanted to cause trouble. I don’t know who it was, or why. It’s been very upsetting. Have the guts to speak to your neighbours in person, and see if a solution can be found. They may not be aware of how bad things are from your perspective given they are used to the noise.

I think you are more likely to get them to engage in quieting the dog if you identify yourself and speak to them in person.

By (a) doing it in writing and (b) being anonymous it becomes more abstract and less likely for them to see it from your point of view. The experience is more like some random just telling them off without them having any right to reply, which can piss people off without really influencing them to change their behaviour. You know in arguments it's better to frame it as "I feel" rather than "you always..." - sort of equivalent to that.

Logically you must know that what happened with your mum's report was a freak accident and not the norm. It'll be human error and unlikely to be repeated.

Please talk to them. Be nice but firm and explain how much it bothers you. It's not easy to train a barky dog not to bark, but there are some very easy fixes they could make. Eg. Let it out later or on a lead. Put blinds on windows and doors so it can't see outside. You could suggest the obvious ones.

Put some chews through the door with a polite note asking them to stick one in its gob before it goes out for a wee. I have to do this to make sure my neighbours aren’t woken up by one of my rat bags. It works a treat.

Otherwise you could start a conversation about something else, move on to asking how old the dog is now and ask curious questions like how she is in general. Compliment the neighbour on how much you like the dog and then drop it in that she’s your alarm clock. Joke about her becoming the local cockerel! Ask if they have thought about giving her a treat as she leaves the door for her early morning wee because your friend finds that works really well and stops the barking.

It doesn’t have to be an aggressive show down eastenders style. Just be calm and pleasant with a “let’s sort this out together” approach.

Letter,yes but send by post. Otherwise they'll see you on ring doorbell
All this go have a nice chat is a bit twee, assumes they'll reflect and immediately address the issue with no ill feeling. You want them to do something yiu dint want ongoing agg arising from a letter. Tough if they have hurt feelings or feel got at, they need to be better neighbours.

Anonymous letter, yes, but posted

I think it won’t get you anywhere, and the council in my area only investigate if it’s barking incessantly.
The biggest problem with raising a concern like this with a neighbour is they are likely to then list everything that you do that annoys them and it can turn into a neighbour war.

Let me know if you come up with any good wording and I’ll use it too for the same situation although ours starts at 6am - they just leave them in the garden barking continuously all day I don’t get it. Massive loud hounds no way they can’t hear it. Drives me potty

The biggest problem with raising a concern like this with a neighbour is they are likely to then list everything that you do that annoys them and it can turn into a neighbour war.

This was one of my worries. DH also works in the same place as the neighbour so not ideal to have any tension between them.

To somebody asking if it's a guarding breed, no, it isn't. It is a small timid dog that is sound sensitive and barks at everything, always.

your husband works same location as the neighbour? Anonymous typed letter posted by mail letter
This has the potential to cause ill feelings if they see you post it through door

If you can't face raising it sensibly, then just leave it altogether.

Anonymous letters are no help and just make everyone uncomfortable.

This.

Knock on the door and have a chat, or report to the council. Typing out little anonymous notes to post secretly isn’t particularly helpful to anyone and involves the whole street unnecessarily.

your husband works same location as the neighbour? Anonymous typed letter posted by mail letter
This has the potential to cause ill feelings if they see you post it through door

Yes I wouldn't have posted it through the door because of ring door bells. But appreciating everyone's feedback. I'm just truly awful with this sort of thing. Her old dog did the same thing and nobody else ever said anything to her. I knew it was quite old when we moved here, so I just hoped that if they ever got another dog, they wouldn't let it do the same thing. This one is worse...

@Theextraordinaryisintheordinary
No! Absolutely do not put chews through or ever give chews, food or toys to any dog without the owners consent! Dogs should never be left unsupervised with chews, they can and do choke on them. Dogs can also have allergies to ingredients just as we can.

A quiet word in passing at whatever time she goes out to walk it and you just happen to be coming out too?

“Oh hi liz how’s wee rover, good boy, hes lovely isn’t he. Although His barking is awfully loud at 6am when half the street is trying to sleep though (tinkly laugh) I wonder if you could supervise him a bit more when he goes out for his morning pee to keep him quiet please. Whose a lovely boy good dog” type thing.

We were the dog owners in a similar situation - though the barking was not as frequent. Our neighbours, who I hadn’t met before, knocked on our door and politely complained. We were mortified that we hadn’t thought of how it would be impacting them, and took steps to stop the barking. We’ve seen them since and it’s not awkward at all.

Although it was awkward at the time, in the end everyone was happy and I think of it as an overall positive interaction with our neighbours. If we had received an anonymous note through the door I would have felt accused, guilty and paranoid.

Please just speak with them!

I have a guarding breed. In reality guarding breeds are often less barky than toys or terriers are.

An anonymous letter is nasty and could be very upsetting. If somebody ever had an issue with my dog I would much prefer that they speak to me politely about it and we could try to resolve it amicably.

When we got our current dog, I put a note through the doors of our three closest neighbours (each side and the house behind) to tell them we were getting another puppy. I said we'd try to keep her quiet, but if she disturbed them, to please let us know. This was appreciated and, fortunately, she isn't a barker. But yes, much better to approach it gently and kindly than anonymous letters or reporting to the council.

Just mention it to them

I have a very similar situation, but with eight dogs across three houses. All back onto a field, so whenever another dog is being walked, they all start barking. It gets very loud.
Very bad in the summer when windows are open.

I think the faked conversations that happen to bring up the barking problem are next door to passive aggressiveness, and really won't improve things overall. Far better to just go round, knock on the door and be direct. No need to be bolshy or impolite, just a straighforward "I don't like to raise this with you, I'm sure you don't realise the negative impact this is having on us now blah blah". If you engineer a conversation in the ways mentioned by PPs, it'll probably get their backs up when they realise you've deliberately faked a bollocks chat just to say shut your bloody dog up will you...

I'm in the same position myself as a neighbour two doors down seems to put her dog outside for a good old barking session and it's annoying everybody, but none of us wants to be the one to tell neighbour how damn annoying the dog is. Worse, there are two dogs next to her and they set off each other frequently. I don't mind hearing noises from people getting on with their lives but when it's prolonged and unnecessary, it does start getting your back up.

Anonymous notes rarely get the hoped for result.
A polite conversation is much better.

If you do complain to your local authority, they will probably ask you to keep a noise nuisance diary - and you need to be very specific when completing one.

'all day, for ages.'
Starts at about 6am. Runs outside, barks for about 5 minutes solid.'

so from the above, I would ask if the barking stopped at 6.05 am ?

and that is what you would be required to put in the diary -

Saturday 16th August

6.00 am - 6.05 am in back garden
7.20 am - 7.22 am - in front living room window, barking at x putting rubbish in bin
9.15 am - 9. 35 am barking in back garden whilst dog owner pegged out washing on line

and so on and so forth

Upon receipt of a completed noise nuisance diary, the Local Authority / Environmental health may:
send an informal letter to the dog owner saying they have received a complaint of dog barking
or
they may visit themselves and have a word with the dog owner
or
they may try and witness a nuisance themselves - this could involve an EHO sitting in their car very very nearby with their window open so they can hear
or
they may visit you and sit in your home so they can hear any nuisance
or
they may send out a noise nuisance letter quoting the appropriate legislation
or
if having witnessed a Statutory Nuisance, they may actually serve an Abatement Notice
or
they may inform you of the legislation, Environmental Health Act 1990, and how you can take legal action yourself, using your noise nuisance diary as your ' evidence '

How very twee. What if conversation isn't polite?What if neighbour is aggrieved and it escalates
Not all converstion remain polite. In particular of an individual is being asked to change behaviour to accommodate someone else.
A potentially unpleasant conversation has real life ramification and the husband and neighbour work at same place

Spot on.
It's unlikely that this will.go to plan.
They.may well come back with things they don't like about you or tell you to move if you don't like it.

How will.you feel if ww3 breaks our, it can easily woth neighnours and don't forget you have to live near them.
The dog is part of their family.