crap, crap, crap, crap. Long rant.

[mrose_s]

Half the reason we picked to live here was the dog friendliness of the neighbours. On one side, they have 2 dogs. Granted they bark too much when the owners are away but they are good neighbours.

On the other side was this fantastic older couple, no pets but they loved Elliot and loved it when he came to visit them. They talked to the dogs over the fence and never complained. Hearing them say "you have 4 of them, they will bark, its fine" was the nicest thing I've heard in a while.

The older couple moved out a few weeks ago and a young couple moved in. Was really hoping they'd be good neigbours aswell. They even brought a dog, so I thought great, dog people.

No, havn't met the girl yet but the guy is so irritable, he's already had a shot at us twice for trivial things and he turns up thismorning telling us Sophie was barking all night (from 3am apparently but I didn't go to bed till 4am so he's lying already)
Yes Soph was probably making noise from early thismorning, she was outside and its getting cold. I wrapped her up in her blanjet but she refused to stay in it last night. We tried to put her in the house last night but she has to get up to toilet o often its not worth it. Her new coat gets here next week hopefully.

I thought I could deal with this guy so long as he doesn't mess with our dogs, but if they're annoying him, I don't trust him not to do something.

My sister answered the door thismorning and said he kept saying things like "yeah that dogs real annoying, you've gotta get rid of it or council will come take it away"

This is all while we have to deal with his dog making noises like its in agony all day because they don't have a fence and its tied up all day. We've been ignoring it, hoping it would settle in because its only been here a couple of weeks. And really... he better not call council, his dog has the wrong shaped head to be living in this state.

Sorry for the rant. I'm really worried.
But atleast if council gets called they'll just make all neighbours do a log of when each others dogs bark. Which is always when their owners are away lol. Ours can't bark trhat much, they spend and average of 2-3 hours a day, 3 days a week alone.

[Sweet72947]

Its annoying enough when someone complains about your dog, but when somebody complains about your dog when they are allowing their dog to behave even worse, well that's infuriating.

I wish you much luck and strength in dealing with these people.

[Romy]

Bah, poo on dumb neighbors! I don't like them either. Three days after we moved in one of our neighbors came over to complain that Strider barked from 2 am onwards for hours and kept him up....ummm, funny that we didn't hear it as he was sleeping at the foot of my bed. And dude, if you don't like animal noises why did you move to the country?

Good luck with the new folks. Hopefully his wife will be better to deal with. One of ours is like that, his wife always comes over to apologize for his buttness.

[Doberluv]

What about trying something that sounds really ridiculous? Just try it one time and then if it doesn't help, let 'em have it with both barrells. (figuratively speaking) Ha ha. What about baking something with a "welcome to the neighborhood" card or something and go to their door with it. Tell them "welcome to the neighborhood" and hand over your fresh baked apple pie. Then... as if it's an aside, say, "Gosh, I'm so sorry my dog's barking bothered you the other night. I will try very hard to get her use to staying inside, even though she hates it. I know how annoying dogs can be when they bark or make other noise. I do apologize." Maybe they'll feel guilty and not be so apt to jump all over you if it happens again. (I doubt it, but it might work.) LOL.

In the meantime, can you get Sophie to like staying inside at night? Even if she must go out, (how old is she?) you could go out with her and bring her back in again. It is annoying to listen to dogs barking in the middle of the night.

[bubbatd]

I do agree that if a dog is out at night , it shouldn't bark . It isn't fair to the neighborhood ....and yes , I meant that ! When I moved here a dog at least 2 blocks over barked all night !! I got to the place that I could tune it out , but cheez what about their neighbors !!! I've often wondered what happened as it's been quiet for some time now !

[mrose_s]

We have decided just to try to stay out of his way, honestly his irritability reminds me of my mums ex on speed and I don't want to go there.
Sophie generally loves being inside, its warm, she has her bed etc but she's 12 and last night I tucked her in and was up for a couple of hours and she wanted to go out 4 times in 2 hours. I went out with her last night to check that she wanted to toilet and she just stood there and then followed me back in the house.
Mums cleaning out the laundry to put her bed in there like last winter and we ordered her new coat a couple of days ago. She really is turning into a stubborn dog as she's aging. She likes walks, she can't go longer than about 10 - 15 minutes because she gets sore but it doesn't really tire her mentally, she couldn't care less about kongs and training is slow going because anything she does takes so much physical effort on her part. She loves big marrow bones but we can't leave her alone with the other dogs with them.

Apparently the neighbours on the other side of him complained about his dogs noise, so he's come to tell us our dogs will get in trouble aswell. Weird, these people have lived 2 doors from us for over a year and I havn't heard anything from them about our dogs making noise.

Honestly though, I don't think she often barks at night. If she did she'd wake us up, mums a very light sleeper and the dogs wake her up at the drop of a hat and usually they arn't a problem. Plus last night I put Sophie to bed outside and was in my room for a good hour or 2 afterwards before I fell asleeo and didn't hear a noise out of her.
Now we just want to move.

[Dobes4Ever]

That's pretty awful, and it's hypocritical and petty of your neighbor to treat you like that, especially in a threatening manner.

[Renee750il]

It may be his own dog he's hearing.

I had a neighbor once who kept calling me at 2 a.m. to tell me my dog was barking. Umm, Bear was sound asleep on the couch and the phone had waked him up! But she'd always slam the phone down in my ear as soon as I'd start to tell her that my dog was asleep in the house.

Finally I got tired of it and waited until I knew she was just starting a swing shift. I called her right about the time when she'd have about an hour and a half or so left to sleep before she had to get up for work.

And I called her to tell her that my dog was, and had been every single time she'd called, sound asleep on the sofa.

She never called me again.

[Doberluv]

Sophie generally loves being inside, its warm, she has her bed etc but she's 12 and last night I tucked her in and was up for a couple of hours and she wanted to go out 4 times in 2 hours.

Unless she's sick or something, there's no reason for her to go out 4 times in 2 hours. I'd take her out for the last time late, like 10 or 11 and then ignore her or tell her to lie down if she whines wanting to go outside. She may be getting a little senile in her old age and restless. She just needs to be re-programmed to go back to sleep right away and not be allowed to wander around the house or wake you up.

Renee, that's a funny story actually. LOL. What an idiot for a neighbor.

When I was a kid, some neighbors had a dog that barked 24/7. Another neighbor called these people in the middle of the night and barked just like their dog into the phone. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap...loudly. LOL. I think they got the hint.