Neighbor's Dog Barks His Head Off. We can't go to sleep.

Poor dog. He's been standing outside on the deck for the past 3 hours under pouring rain! He's changed from whining, to barking, to howling. It's almost 11 pm and we can't go to sleep. I went over next door and rang the bell for 5 minutes. No reply, although the house lights are on downstairs and upstairs.

We've been suffering from the excessive barking of our neighbor's dog for quite some time now. I think the dog has serious issues. Probably because of improper training. I sure don't want my young corgi Tod to pick up on this barking business.

I don't even know what we can do in this situation. Go over and ask him to house the dog more? Especially at night. Is there a law? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on December 11, 2008 at 10:55pm

If you live in a subdivision, there should be some rules about leaving dogs in the yard unattended. If you confront your neighbor directly and there's still no improvements, the next best thing is to call animal control :(

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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on December 11, 2008 at 11:24pm

You do need to talk to your neighbor, a delicate thing, but this is unacceptable behavior (on the peoples' part).

When you have a complaint like this, it does help to be able to
(A) Express how you FEEL when this happens, what it means to your life, etc.
(B) Ask if they would be willing to X,Y,Z -- i.e., offer specific suggestions.

You want your neighbor to know that you're on their side, trying to help (with THEIR problem).
Unfortunately, people who let their dog get to this point are unlikely to be the sort of people who can solve this problem -- people who can solve this problem are unlikely to get to this place to begin with. It definitely helps that you have a dog, too -- you're both dog people, you have something in common, you're not just Them (i.e. dog haters). Actually, I'm not sure they ARE dog people, or they wouldn't be excluding the dog like this. The dog is probably psychotic because it's been rejected by its pack and shut outdoors, ostracized.

Going to Animal Control is the "nuclear option", which you always want to avoid because you live on the same planet as these people. You have to engage these people.

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Permalink Reply by Worthington Natalia on December 12, 2008 at 9:07am

Good morning. Can hardy keep my eyes open. My hubby finally 'caught' our neighbor pull up last night around midnight and told him his dog was out barking all night keeping us up. The neighbor said he 'had no idea he left the dog outside' (???) Thanks for all the advice. I really hope our neighbor will start taking dog ownership seriously and be sensitive to our needs.