Who do you report a constantly barking, whimpering dog to?

[MaureenMLove]

Need some help, if anyone can,

A colleague is having problems with a dog who is clearly in distress in a house about 4 down from where she lives.

It's an Alsatian which lives constantly in the garden. It is clearly uncared for. Barks 24/7, and whimpers day and night too.

She had called RSPCA, they say without proof of cruelty they can't do anything and the noise needs to be reported to council,

The council say they can't do anything without proof, but will send a letter.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where she can call next?

Your post broke my heart , I have a German Shepherd sleeping peacefully next to me. Maybe you could contact a local dog charity and ask for advice. Also, perhaps your neighbour could talk to other neighbours and write a joint letter detailing the cruel treatment of the dog- with pics/time diaries if possible? You and your colleague are amazing for caring, please stick with it. Op, are you in Berkshire by any chance?

Ah, thank you for answering. No, were no in Berkshire. Thankfully, my friend called the noise department of the council again at around 7pm last night. The lady could hear the dog barking, so they bumped her up the list of priorities a bit.

She said a couple arrived at around 9pm and the dog was still outside and still barking. They posted a letter through the door of the house, which was all they could do, but they had a good look into the garden from my friends house and seemed reasonably concerned. Of course, the council part is only on the noise, but at least if she has a result from that, the RSPCA might also bump her up the priority list as well.

I've called the RSPCA as well, pretending to be another concerned neighbour, just to add to the complaint.

The RSPCA won’t do anything. If the dog has food, water and shelter they consider that fine. I know from having a similar issue with a neighbours dog that was outside all the time but there was a form of shelter.

RSPCA wont do anything as long as the dog is not ill treated, if they have access to food, water and have some sort of shelter, we had a similar problem with a barking dog near us, what we did was write them a letter stating the problem, we explained that we had reported it to the local council and are keeping a record for them for the next 2 weeks, its now been a year and the dog is still at the house but no longer kept outside since we wrote the letter x