Neighbours dogs - can I ask advice please?

[MeganChips]

We have recently moved house and our next door neighbour has 2 dogs.

She goes out for about 6 hours every day in normal circumstances and the dogs bark and howl for the entire duration. They are not particularly thin walls but I think it carries through the chimney breast.

They are driving me mad. I haven’t spoken to her yet because she is self isolating for 12 weeks so we have some respite. It gives me time to formulate an approach!

Before I spent thousands on sound proofing I was thinking of offering her one of those sonic bark devices. Are they humane and do the work?

Would you be really pissed off if someone offered one to you? I’m not mad keen on alienating my new neighbours this quickly.

Thanks!

You just need to tell her that her dogs are distressed when they are left.

And that you're telling her so she can try to alleviate it for them as it's equally distressing to listen to.

For the love of God don't mention anti barking devices though. As a dog owner, I wouldn't take that well. At all.

Ok thank you. Hopefully she is the kind of dog owner who will take heed of that.

Point taken about the anti bark device, I won’t do that. Just out of curiosity though can I ask why? Are they cruel?

Dogs have got incredibly sensitive hearing, a million times better than ours. To emit a high frequency seems horribly cruel to me.

There are far better ways, and leaving dogs for 6 hours a day doesn't sound very responsible.

If the dogs are barking continually rather than occasional few mins then its likely they're distressed and not coping with being left. It maybe owner isn't aware of the problem and will then make an effort to work on it, but you can complain to council who usually give you a noise diary to complete first but should be info online about process.

It is continually, I would have thought they would get sore throats!

Thanks for the advice, I will speak to her first when she goes back to work.

Speak to her now, dont wait until she goes to back to work. She may not be aware her dogs are stressed by her absence.

It is ok if you approach it right. It's a delicate balance. If the dogs are quiet now obviously they have some sort of separation anxiety. However also you have to think do they bark if they hear a noise? If so they are protecting their house from what they perceive as threatening objects making noises. People need to work unfortunately and she may not be in a position that she can afford a dog walker or doggy day care. If you are annoyed by it offer to help, ask if you can pop it and take them for a quick walk round the block etc. It's not an easy fix to just get them to stop barking and the stress of receiving a complaint is mega awful for some people. You will need to accept that even if you do tell her these things won't change overnight. It will be a long process if she decides to try and train them.
What is it you want her to do?

The dogs sound distressed. This is actually the perfect opportunity for neighbour to train them to be calm when she is gone if you can get a message to her now.
Anti bark are cruel because it won't discriminate which dog is making noise so both get punished. But also, if the dogs are upset, it would be like blasting a horn in someone's face for crying. It won't change their emotion of being upset but it could add to their panic and misery.

I can't stand bloody barking dogs especially for hours on end, the poor aimals must be incredibly distressed. I didn't buy the last house I was looking at because next door's dog was yelping the entire viewing, both times I went there.
I'm just hoping my cat doesn't piss off the neighbours, she's stone deaf and has no volume control.

What is it you want her to do?

Train them somehow not to bark when they are left alone for a six hour stretch. I wouldn’t mind if it was intermittent but it’s constant, apart from the odd howling interlude!

I like dogs a lot but haven’t got one so don’t know how easy or difficult that would be to do.

I will speak to her. I will try and have a few chats with her first because I haven’t actually spoken to her yet and don’t want our first ever interaction to be a complaint.

@MeganChips it really is dependent on why they are doing it. It can be very very difficult to train. If possible I'd offer to pop in for 10 mins or so whilst she is at work to give them some love. I had a dog with separation anxiety. It took a very long time and we often had relapses. But with help from a neighbour and a dog walker we overcame it but it did take a good 2 years

It's very likely she is completely unaware of it as it doesn't happen while she's there. You'd be doing her a favour by telling if she doesn't know, as someone else may report her

Dogs shouldn’t be left alone for six hours. No wonder they are barking.
Let her know they are doing so.
But your only real option is a noise complaint if she doesn’t change anything.