Passive Aggressive Rant of the Day - Barking Dogs in Backyards

I've been a dog owner. I like dogs. I hate annoying dogs. My thought is that you should either train or give enough love to your dogs so that they are not annoying to other people. Same with children. When your dogs start affecting the quality of life for other people, you should assume some responsibility.

We just moved into our a new house. It's a relatively quiet neighborhood, except for the guy across the street with a straight-piped diesel, and a dog two doors up that barks constantly.

Doggo is some sort of hound-pincer mix. He barks all. the. damn. time. At everything. And anything. Why does he bark? Because he's given no love. He spends all day outside. His owner comes home and practically ignores him, or proceeds to devise different ways of restraining the dog so it doesn't chew up his building materials, porch, tear up furniture on the porch/deck, or bark and whine while he's home or away. I've never seen this dog being walked and only caught brief glimpses of the owner interacting with it.

Now, for anyone walking by the front of the property, they'd never know a dog was there, because he's hidden from the street. His owner has even started penning him at the back of the property to keep his from barking at passerbys. That means Animal Control has no reason to be concerned.

But for all the neighbors who are within site distance of the dog while in their back yards, we get barked at. Currently this is affecting about 5 or 6 surrounding properties (including that of a local LEO). I get barked at when I'm outside doing yard work. When I'm on my porch. If I open my back windows, the barking enters my house without filtration.

Can folks share success stories of how calls to government solved barking dog problems, or maybe horror stories as a word of warning?

I hate dog owners that just let their mutts bark and bark. My old place downtown used to be surrounded by dogs. No one of them would bark constantly, but there was always one barking. Drove me freakin' nuts.

I had a neighbor who had a problem dog recently. I started visiting in the middle of the night when the dog would wake me up to let her know the dog was barking. She got a lot better at bringing the pooch in after a couple of 3 AM reminders. The next step to take, according to animal control, is video with a time stamp so you have proof of the nuisance animal.

Thankfully the dog doesn't bark in the night, but I'm not sure why. I'm not sure if the owner brings it inside, or if it just sleeps really well.

But at the crack of dawn, it's out barking. Along with the roosters calling (it's that kind of neighborhood).

Our dog has lately developed the habit of standing on the back deck and barking steadily. He only goes outside to play and take care of business, but sometimes he just stands and barks.

It annoys me enough that I drag him back inside when he starts, even if he seems to be having a grand ole time. He's not even barking at the door, he's staring off over his kingdom.(yeah, that's probably still his motivation. He's training me to let him in.)

We do have neighbors with very vocal dogs that I've had to listen to for years. Just for them I sometimes let him do it for a half hour if I can stand it before I let him in. I hate to see people just leave a dog outside by themselves all the time.

Neighbors at an old house left their dogs outside all day in a pen. Blue Tic Hounds I seem to remember so it always sounded like runaway convicts were making their way up the draw with a posse of deputies hot on their tracks.

I called the cops a couple of times, and animal control once. I don't know if it was related or if the owner just decided he didn't actually want dogs but some time after that the dogs went away.

pheller wrote: We just moved into our a new house. It's a relatively quiet neighborhood, except for the guy across the street with a straight-piped diesel, and a dog two doors up that barks constantly.

I am, in fact, surprised they're not the same household.

We've got a barker. Inherent to the breed, a Great Pyrenees. We apologize to the neighbors about it, and bring him in when he starts barking.

It helps that his is a low bark.

Well the guy who has the problem dog does have a large truck, but I never see it move. There is a Tacoma that appears to be the DD, but I'm just not sure. I've seen a kid playing in the back yard, but only occasionally. I think it's a single guy who got a dog after a seperation because his wife didn't want him to have one and because his kid wanted one, but they kid doesn't play with the dog and guy didn't really want it to begin with.

The guy with the loud diesel is a local mayor (ie a guy who knows everybody and has multiple family members who have lived in the community all their lives) and aside from his loud truck is pretty respectful. He's got a dog that doesn't make a peep.

A family member mentioned a whistle or something you can use that will hurt the dogs ears and make them stop barking from a distance. I've never heard of such a thing. I have heard of bark collars.

I've got a barker. Most of the time she's just chiming in with the rest of the dogs in the neighborhood. We try to bring her in when she barks, but she feels the need to yell at her friends constantly. I'd feel bad, but the neighbors had barkers for years, now it's payback time.

BTW-she gets all sorts of love and is primarily an inside dog. Just loves to bark.

If the dog was kept inside no-one else in the neighborhood would near him. He'd also not be able to see or hear anything outside, so he probably wouldn't bark.

The owner doesn't seem to want an inside pet, so it spends all day outside.

I had a neighbor across the street, that left his dog out all the time. He'd stand at the door and bark, without end. I had called the house several times, asking politely, for them to do something about the barking. Nothing ever changed. On the first nice evening of the spring, we had the windows and front door open, for some fresh air. Unfortunately, the peace was disrupted by Buddy. (Ex) wife went out on the front porch and asked loudly across the street at the guy, who happened to be outside, "Could you please do something about your barking dog?" He snapped back, "Kiss my ass!" That was it. I went out and told the guy not to talk to my wife that way. "berkeley you!" After some back and forth shouting about his dog constantly barking, several neighbors came out. Finally, the guy actually told me to "call the cops." So, I did. An officer came, talked to the three other neighbors that were out, and then went to talk to Buddy's owner. She came back, several minutes later, to tell us he was belligerent, offensive, had an attitude, and ultimately got a $277 ticket. I never saw or heard Buddy again, before I moved away that following fall.

Talk to other neighbors. Get them on your side.

We recently moved to another house. A few doors away, the neighbor lady's dogs only seem to bark at us. We never hear them bark any other time.

Another neighbor pointed out we moved in where the lover lived. Not the boyfriend, but the lover.

Just got off the phone with Animal Control. They'll leave a nastigram with some suggestions, mainly being the idea of blocking the dogs field of view so it won't bark at things it can't see.

We'll see if this nips the bud.

At least you don't have the doberman and it's crew that bum rush the fence in completely silent attack mode whenever I'm anywhere close to that part of the yard and then bark and snarl like they want to disembowel me. They've stopped jumping over the fence, so that's nice.
Or all of the dogs on the street that just run and chase the kids on their bikes.
The dogs are literally the worst part of my neighborhood. I hate them so much.

This thread makes me feel good since we're cat people. Which actually means we are the cat's annoying human pets that all the other neighborhood cats complain about on the cat internet.

ultraclyde wrote: Our dog has lately developed the habit of standing on the back deck and barking steadily. He only goes outside to play and take care of business, but sometimes he just stands and barks.

Mine will do this about 1 in 10 times he's outside. Usually its because he sees a cat in the distance. Almost all of these occurrences are at night.

I go out to bring him inside, but when he's agitated and barky its impossible to catch him and he will NOT listen to me. He'll run away from me and go bark at it from a different part of the yard. Then I look the the idiot running around his yard at night in his underpants chasing his own dog.

I have not had any luck training this behavior out of him

pheller wrote: A family member mentioned a whistle or something you can use that will hurt the dogs ears and make them stop barking from a distance. I've never heard of such a thing. I have heard of bark collars.

There is a sensor you can put up that will blast out some dog hearing range ultrasonic noise. A friend of mine a few years ago got one for a dog a yard over. He mounted on a pole pointing at the yard. Apparently it worked quite well, maybe too well. He might have set it a bit sensitive though, he said he heard another neighbors non-annoying dog give out a short bark the a bit of a yelp, then nothing...

We used to have an inconsiderate neighbor that was not home much during the day, but would leave their dog outside when they weren't home. Dogs being dogs, he did what he thought his job was and alerted whenever he saw anything move, and then continued to bark for about 30 minutes afterward each time. After several polite phone calls, leaving messages and speaking in person with rhem about it, it became obvious that they were not motivated to change anything in regards to the dog being outside unattended.

But then I noticed that about twice a month they would invite their friends over and have a bbq, hanging around outside and their dog never barked during these get togethers, and it gave me an idea. I rigged up a digital voice recorder on the fence that separates our property one day, and I got a solid hour of their dog barking his fool head off at squirrels and such. Then I gathered my guitar amps and rigged up a splitter and cables and we were wired for stereo sound baby!
Next weekend when I saw them getting the grill and coolers ready I began my preparations too, amps set up close to the fence and aimed very much in the general direction of the forthcoming festivities, extension cords, cables, all of it ready. Once they had put those burgers on the grill I knew they were committed and I began playing my recording. I made sure it was on the continuous loop setting and the volume was cranked as close to 11 as I could get, and then I went inside. That must have made some sort of impact on their lives because that dog was NEVER left outside unattended again, and they moved within the year.
Good luck with your neighbor!

I got to meet one of our neighbor dogs yesterday, the sweetest chocolate Lab named Gracie. I was working out in the yard, with my dog tied up nearby, and look up to see her standing at the edge of the woods watching us, like she was waiting for an invitation to come over. I called her and she came right up and very friendly, so I called the number on her collar and we had a nice visit while we waited for her daddy to pick her up. Really just the sweetest dog.

My dog is probably actually the shiny happy person of our neighborhood, although even he really isn't bad. He barks at the wildlife and at anyone he thinks is pulling into our driveway (which is many times greater than the actual number of visitors and get), but he's never left unattended so it mostly just annoys us.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I rigged up a digital voice recorder on the fence that separates our property one day, and I got a solid hour of their dog barking his fool head off at squirrels and such. Once they had put those burgers on the grill I knew they were committed and I began playing my recording. I made sure it was on the continuous loop setting and the volume was cranked as close to 11 as I could get, and then I went inside.

Are you for hire?

In reply to pheller:

If you can find me

This worked fairly well on our dog 10 years ago. Looks like a birdhouse. Mount it on a post aimed at the offending dog.

http://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/petsafe-ultrasonic-outdoor-bark-control

Here's my tale that ended in a dead dog and the owner buying my kids Christmas presents.

My favorite kind of dog is a Siamese cat, so know that I don't have any particular interest or love for dogs. As long as they aren't a nuisance or threat, I am uninterested in their existence. About 12 years ago I was in grad school and our neighbors had several dogs that routinely barked all day until they were brought in at around 11 pm. Like the OP, we couldn't have our windows open or use our backyard. On several occasions a dog would come in our yard and bristle up and come after us. The owners were never home when we were, so I never got the chance to talk to them and obviously the noise make studying difficult. I'd see these dogs running around the neighborhood, eating garbage from the neighbor's cans, and generally being semi-aggressive jerks.

I called animal control many nights and left a message with the dogs barking in the background. My wife called. A lot. We did this until Animal Control responded and left notices with the owners. The dogs kept barking. So I bought an ultrasonic bark-be-gone device and put it on the high fence that separated our properties. It was inaudible and didn't work so I set it to audible, figuring if I couldn't control the dogs, maybe I could control the owners. This got their attention and by now they knew who was complaining and what the issue was, but the let their dogs keep barking. I came home one day and found the dog owner had tried to splash gasoline through the gaps in the fence boards to kill the bark-be-gone. It still worked and the dogs still barked. So I turned the volume on max. I came home another day to find BB gun holes in my dead bark-be-gone. He had declared war by shooting toward my house (toward my new windows). I took it inside, soldered it back together, got it to work, and put it back on the fence. As luck would have it, a few days later I could see the guy walking along the fence through the gaps, so I said "hey buddy! It still works! And if it stops again, there's going to be trouble" He responded "Let's talk about this". "Too late. You've been warned", I said. I probably could have talked about it, but frankly the guy had used up my patience over the course of several months. The next time the dogs barked we called Animal Control and I told the officer about the BB gun and gas and he told me that someone had poisoned one of the dogs. I told him it didn't surprise me. The dogs irritated everyone on all sides. After this, the officer issued them a ticket and they were taken to court by the city and fined. This along with the dead dog got their attention and the dogs all stopped barking one day. I don't know how or why, but they are quiet now. A big German Shepard occasionally comes in the yard, but he runs away if he sees us. The owner lady then came over and apologized for the dogs and her husband and started buying my kids presents for Christmas. Weird.

TL:DR Call animal control a lot. It eventually works and perhaps one of the neighbors will get fed up and shoot the dog or something or it will die of old age.

Killing or injuring the dogs is NOT the way to go, you could be fined, go to jail or worse. Call the authorities, often, nonstop if you have to. They won't bug the dog owner until they are bugged themselves. Get the neighbors in on it too.