I’ll try to be thorough with this post so as not to drip feed.
We moved into our house last September. We are on the end of a row of houses. Our next door neighbours seemed nice enough, as did the rest of the neighbours on the row. Before we moved in, we renovated a bit, so were coming to and from the house. I spoke to our next door neighbours and in conversation she told me that “Our neighbour (the other side of her) has told us that our dog howls and barks when we are out. We didn’t even know until we moved in here and she told us.” I assumed at the time it was a problem that had been raised, and since she was no aware of it, she had fixed it.
Until we moved in.
My husband and I both WFH. When I say the dog starts the second they walk out of the door until the minute they get home, I am not exaggerating. It is relentless. I literally know the dog's barking pattern, it barks 4 times, takes a breath, barks again. I don’t know how the fuck it isn’t horse, they must give it a packet of soothers when they fuck off out.
The neighbours on the other side are also tearing their hair out and she wears two bloody hearing aids! She’s had enough, as have we. Some days it can be 10/12 hours, my neighbour said she's had 16 hour days of it.
We have told them about it - they are fully aware. His attitude was “I’ve got a dog, innit.” They were offended that we even brought it up. It came down to shouting in the street and they’re now playing the victim because they got shouted at after over 12 months of trying to get them to sort it. We are all at breaking point.
They’ve also told us we need to be patient.
They think leaving the dog from 9-6 is an acceptable time frame for it to be alone, as he has openly told us this.
My husband has tried to offer advice - we have a dog who is crate trained and she goes in with a blanket over the crate if we go out. She also sleeps in there by choice. It was a hard slog training her to do this but we knew it was necessary as she’s a vocal dog (beagle) and we couldn’t put our neighbours through the noise if, for example, we needed to go shopping/run errands. She’s not often left on her own, especially not for long periods of time, but we understand that there’s times when that can happen.
We don’t expect a dog to be silent - we are all dog people on this row and have our own.
They literally do not care and it’s become more and more evident as they have treated us like we are the nuisance.
Also a big pot smoker and does it right under our young daughter's bedroom window and around his own child when standing on the step. This isn’t necessarily related to the post, but wanted to put it in as another example of just how not arsed they are about their neighbours - I don’t care if someone wants to smoke pot, your life, your choice, but I expect a bit of consideration. Our daughter has sobbed because we’ve had to keep her window closed when it’s roasting or her room is like a mushroom cloud.
I was also accused of holding back a parcel because it was delivered to my house and I didn’t then take it to them when they were home, which isn’t very fucking often cos we have to listen to the dog having a mental breakdown constantly. He was told to knock for his own parcels and he’s lucky we even took it in as common courtesy tends to go out of the door when your neighbours are actively telling you that their lives are miserable because of your dog and you don’t give a fuck.
Should I now report this? They say the dog has food and water and is well loved - in the whole 12 months I’ve lived here I’ve seen it once - they don’t walk it and I never see it use the toilet in the back garden, either. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel like reporting it was a big step, but we also feel really sorry for the dog, too, it’s obviously really distressed, but also, we are at our wits end. It’s affecting our lives in a big way and has ground us down.
I’ve had pancreatic cancer and deal with acute bouts of pancreatitis on a chronic basis - the pain is very, very intense and listening to the dog on top of being in pain is fucking torturous.
Every single activity has the background noise of a dog - watching tv, working, cooking, cleaning, taking a bath, trying to get an extra half an hour in bed at the weekend, even just thinking.
Does anyone have any other options to try and fix this, or have been there themselves? I wish I was exaggerating about how long this goes on for every single day, apart from a Tuesday because the woman is off work.