What to do about a neighbors barking dog?
Question by Emily: What to do about a neighbors barking dog?
I am at my limit here, and so are my dogs. I am afraid my dog may kill the neighbors dog.
I own and foster dogs, and I have had neighbors on both sides of me that had dogs. At all times my dogs got along with theirs – or maybe I should say that they were all indifferent, they could have cared less about each others existence.
Often times I am working with and training foster dogs that have severe behavioral issues, and my large forest-type back yard has always been a nice, quiet area that we could go to relax, play or train. However, we recently got new neighbors and they have one of the most irritating dogs I have ever encountered. Every single time I and/or my dogs are outside, this new neighbors dog comes running up to the fence. Even if we are very quiet, it always manages to hear us. It runs along the fence ferociously barking and growling, antagonizing my dogs. It does not stop until we go back into the house.
This dog actually broke down one of our fence boards and came into our yard while I & my dogs were on vacation, and harassed my chickens, sending one of them over the fence. Thankfully my stepdad was there to go track down the hen & scare the stupid dog back into its own yard. We talked to the neighbor about this, and she put up chicken wire along the fence to attempt to keep the dog out of our yard(however, chicken wire is not a very strong)…Not only am I concerned for the lives of my chickens, but also for the life of my neighbors dog. At this point, my personal dog(who is a medium/large sized dog) is so sick of being harassed and antagonized by this other dog(who is a small terrier-type dog) that if I do not redirect her attention in time to something other than the dog, she will start attacking the fence.
My personal dog is very well behaved, the fact that she is doing this despite all my work and training with her is a testament to how extremely horrible this neighbors dog is. We have told the neighbor about our concern for her dogs safety, if it were to break into our yard again, but things have hardly changed. We have talked to this woman MULTIPLE times about how her dog is constantly harassing mine to the point where they are now reactive to her dog, but still nothing has changed.
I am at my limit here, I just want to be able to go into my back yard without it having to be a training session for my dogs to ignore the antagonist at the fence. I am lucky because my current foster dog is long-term and does not mind the neighbors dog so much, but once he gets adopted out I expect to be going through fosters quickly again(usually less than a month with each dog) and I cringe at the thought of having to deal with this over and over again every time I get a new foster. I also want to be able to let my hens free range without having to worry about going outside one of these times and finding them all dead or over the fence(into a wildlife preserve where I would never see them again) because the neighbors dog has broken into the yard again.
PLEASE help me! What can I do?! Talking with this woman is obviously not helping. I want to keep the peace with the neighbor, but at this point I just want to cry because I am so dang frustrated.
(P.S. In case it matters, I am located in very, very far Northern California)
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4 Responses to What to do about a neighbors barking dog?
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Call the cops!
Noel
September 27, 2013 at 9:25 am
This is a tough situation… Have you tried calling the police?? I mean, her dog is disturbing your peace. You have the right to go in your backyard and listen to birds and play with your dogs. Her dog is taking away your right. That oughta be against the law. If she wants to let her yippy dog out, she can buy it a bark collar, or a muzzle.
Cindy
September 27, 2013 at 10:05 am
Hum. Difficult one for sure. For the fencing situation, I suppose YOU can put up adequate fencing so their dog simply cannot break through and get at your chickens. As for the constant barking, this would be classed as disturbing the peace in most places, in which case you could call your local authorities, be it the police, or whoever, and ask for their advice. As you have already talked to these idiots, they have had fair warning!! I’ve had neighbours suggesting that their dogs are just talking to my dogs when they let this happen (even if my dogs just go about their business without reacting or certainly not barking back!!).
I don’t see why you should be in this situation, re your fostering, by any means. And for sure, if her dog breaks through, you’d be quite entitled to take it to your local Shelter – that might give her a wake-up call, even if it would up the angst between you!!
Again I think you need to take local advice from the relevant authorities, if ANOTHER talk to this woman doesn’t do the trick – tell her you will be taking this further (but would hate to have to do that) if she doesn’t sort her dog out.
Verulam 2
September 27, 2013 at 10:30 am
That’s a tough one, because we’ve run into this situation before. For disturbance, the police probably wouldn’t do anything unless it was after a certain time. Also, because the dogs in his own yard, I don’t know that there is much that can be done. He’s irritating, yes, and causing a lot of unfair stress, but unless he comes into your yard and causes damage to you, your property, your animals or himself, I unfortunately, don’t think there’s much you can do. I really hate to say it.
One area where the police might be able to help is to act as a mediator. I’ve heard of this happening, where the two parties will sit down, with the police present and talk about the situation and try to resolve it. If nothing else comes out of the meeting, you can at least have it on record that you warned this woman about your concerns and don’t want to be held responsible if something happens.
Satnin
September 27, 2013 at 11:09 am