Dog owners, can I ask your opinion please?

[naturelover]

I don't have a dog and never have. I'm clueless.

My neighbour's dog is the bane of our lives. It yaps at irregular times in the night (in their bedroom which is adjacent to ours), it's sometimes let out in the garden to bark like a loon in the middle of the night (which is actually louder than in the bedroom next to ours) and if they go out of an evening, it barks non-stop for hours (lonliness I suppose). It can be seen at all hours in the upstairs front bedroom barking at passersby.

It's some kind of fluffy white terrier, not a puppy and not old either (haven't dared ask its age in case they think we're curious how much longer it has to live).

We keep mentioning it to them, they keep saying they'll address the problem.

What I want to know is, realistically, can anything be done to train a dog like that to simply not bark as much?

Thanks

bump

in short - yes. happy, well-trained, well-looked after dogs don't behave like this. Getting them to stop is hard though. and the big question is really whether or not these people can be bothered. can they be bothered to research and find out ways of stopping him? and can they bothered to implement them? It is wholly reasonable of you to expect them to.

I would start to keep a record of the disturbances and I would mention to them that you really don't want to but you really are at your wits' end and if there's no improvement in eg 4 weeks you'll start looking into approaching your noise abatement office (or whatever it's called).

Thanks.
They did seem to address the problem for a while but then they got complacent and the dog is worse again.
We are already keeping a record.
I want to keep harmonious relations with them as we're all likely to be neighbours for a very long time but at the moment this is at the cost of our sanity!

yes you can train a dog not to bark, but there seems to be a bigger problem. The dog doesnt sound very happy, well trained or mentally/physically drained.

so, what hatwoman said.

poor you, if it were me I would be past the 'nice neighbour' stage by now.

Sounds like the dog is not getting much exercise. Our dog barks and we are trying to train her not to, and it is definitely worse when she has not had a good walk.

Could it be a Maltese Terrier? We have one and I am told they are prone to barking.