AIBU to refuse to move in my garden so that a neighbour's dog stops barking?

[Motnight]

I'm fairly certain I am not but my neighbour's attitude has made me wonder.

Earlier today, just after 7 am, I was sitting at the bottom of my garden on the bench drinking tea and just listening to the birds and looking at my flower bed. Our garden is that of a typical London Victorian terrace, surrounded on 3 sides by other gardens. I was probably 2 feet away from the fence separating our garden from opposite neighbours.

The neighbour's kids were out playing, Not particularly loudly but I could here them (I often do and it's not a problem at all, we are all living in close proximity, that's part and parcel of it). Suddenly their dog starts barking very loudly. It goes on for a couple of minutes. I then hear a male voice saying "is there anyone there?". I say, yes, your neighbour, hi (we've never spoken before). The man then says my dog is barking at you. He knows you are there. I don't know what to say so say nothing. The man adds can you move further up your garden please so my dog stops barking. I say, sorry, what did you say as I can't quite believe he is asking me to move. I have been completely quiet, minding my own business and just enjoying my garden. He repeats it. I say no, I am having my tea (!). He says, but your garden is as long as ours, there must be space for you to sit elsewhere, and if you don't move we will have to take the dog in. I reply, look I am sitting in my garden and I am going to stay here for as long as I want.

The man sighs loudly and says thank you for nothing, I'll return the favour some day. I hear a bit of rustling and muttering and then silence. Kids and dog and man have obviously gone back into the house. And I am left thinking WTF.

No excuse for being an idiot.

Awful accident an hour ago outside The Windmill, one dead and some injuries.

This.

My next door but one neighbour has 2 dogs like this. Everyone im outside be it putting rubbish in bins or filling watering cans up from water butt , they bark and get yelled at . Sometimes I feel guilty especially if it's recycling as takes a couple of trips and I feel like im winding them up unintentionally. We are allowed in our gardens feel they need a bit of training to not bark at every tiny noise.
Were barking at birds earlier

Weirdly, but predictably, there is another post running about screaming children in a neighbour's garden where most posters are telling OP to put up and shut up. But apparently its unreasonable for a neighbouring dog to bark. Both disturb people around them, yet its acceptable it seems to be disturbed by screaming kids but not by a barking dog....

It's your garden you can sit wherever you want to. Not your job to keep his dog quiet he chose to have a pet it's his job to train it to be quiet. You moving in your own garden probably wouldn't make a difference anyway. He sounds ridiculously entitled you're not obliged to move yourself around for him to get peace and quiet from his own dog
You definitely weren't being unreasonable

Print off a flyer for a local dog trainer and post it through his letter box 🤣🤣🤣

it depends on the noise. I tell my kids not to aggressively scream for long periods (which they don’t anyway because I’ve always told them not to, I hate the sound) because of the neighbours but they sometimes do scream in excitement or shout if playing and of course I won’t stop them in those cases.

A dog constant barking though is through lack of training and the dog being upset, not just “having fun” like kids. Again not talking about one off barks if playing but the constant barking like OP talks about.

You can sit where you like in your own garden. End of.
Neighbour is completely unreasonable.

The neighbours either side is me each have a dog. If they are outside when I first go into my garden, they will usually bark once or twice. Kind of ‘possible intruder’ alert! But then they are immediately quiet, presumably the owners just tell them it’s ok and to shh.

To my mind, this is how it ought to be!

My dog has a tendency to bark, especially at the neighbours dog. I will always take him in if I can’t settle him. I wouldn’t dream of asking neighbours to stop their activity. It’s my problem not theirs.

I don't understand why you couldn't just move up the garden a bit. It seems very petty, unhelpful and downright rude not to.

I can’t even sit in my garden anymore, NDN dog barks continually and has free rein when no one is home. The second I open my door, he goes crazy.

This is madness. The world has gone bonkers. So you’re quietly sitting in your garden having a morning cuppa and they have the blooming cheek to ask you to move so that their dog can relax.. cheeky buggers!
Not dog related, but many moons ago, when sky first became a thing, ,we had a dish fitted to the front of our house, we were in a semi detached and it was as far over as it could go without being on their property. Our neighbour came round to ask us if we would move it over a bit as she didn’t like the look of it and felt it was far too close to their house. It was fitted where the sky engineer recommended to get the best signal. To keep the peace, we duly obliged and had it moved over to the other side and then 6m later they had one fitted right next to where we originally had ours… apart from that they were lovely neighbours but I never forgot it. They enjoyed a fab signal, whilst ours was a bit hit n miss.

So op can’t use her entire garden silently so someone else doesn’t have to train or move their dog 🤣🤣 No.

This made me laugh. I mean the “barking bastards.”😂

Utterly ridiculous.

I have a dog that barks at random stuff. He is told to knock it off and if he doesn’t, we bring him in.

Their inability to train their dog is not a you problem.

I think you missed the point of the OP. She wasn't complaining about a dog barking. She was flabbergasted that her neighbour expected her not to sit where she wanted in her own garden so that HE wouldn't have to listen to his own dog barking. Weird is right.

OP didn’t complain about the dog barking.

Why should the OP move when the owner can take his hellbeast inside?

Don’t you just love fucking inconsiderate neighbours? If you were sitting in silence OP, and from what you wrote I’d say you no doubt were…….why was the bloody dog barking? id say it was something to do with NDN kids and he blamed you because, of course, his little cherubs can do no wrong!!!
You NDN sounds like the moron next door to me…….he's planning a BBQ tonight. His BBQ hasn’t been used as yet this year and is open to the elements. He hasn’t cleaned it since last using it in autumn 2025. So in preparation for tonight he decides at 2.30 this afternoon, WHEN I HAVE A FULL LOAD OF WHITE WASHING ON MY LINE, to fire up his BBQ to clean all the shit of it! I know he had seen my washing as I saw him look over the fence - which isn’t high by the way! His simpering wife then says “oh, he’s sorry” as I frantically grabbed all the clothes and retorted with “I’ll put them in the dryer then”!!!
That is why I think fucking neighbours are moronic, inconsiderate twats………and I now feel a tad better for getting it off my chest! AND he’s kissed goodbye to free veggies when we start harvesting 😡

We moved because of our neighbours and 2 dogs outside barking constantly, we even had trouble selling because of it, cost us £20,000, now we have no neighbours and it’s bliss and of course my dogs can bark to their hearts content 😂 I would have to go round and speak to him reasonably at first!

Some dog owners entitlement and cheeky fucker- ness knows no bounds. The little shit might be the centre of your sad universe but I couldn’t care less about it. Is what I would want to say but obviously wouldn’t…

See I’m on the other side of the fence. Or hedge to be precise. My dog didn’t bark until the pillock who moved next door hacked so much off the hedge that you can now see straight through it and I have no privacy whatsoever. Now every time they walk up and down their garden my dog thinks they are doling into my property and she barks. Because they hacked the boundary to fuck and you can see straight through it..

Ah! Male entitlement! It knows no bounds! Perhaps next time you could suggest he trains his dog?

“Can you move your dog further towards your house please then he stops barking at me”