Received a letter from the dog warden

A friend of mine has 13 dogs ( his family do agility). They had a call as a neighbour complained of the noise from the dogs. The others neighbours said the dogs only barked when someone knocked the door, he was afraid they were barking alot when they were out.

Dog People came out to see for themselves and there was no problem. The neighbour was a trouble maker who hated dogs it seemed and was just causing trouble.
 
Glad to hear that dog wardens do actually follow barking complaints up, as I have a neighbour with two dogs who goes out all day and they bark none stop from morning to evening, one after the other. It's incessant and extremely irritating as we live in a quiet neighbourhood.

Doesn't sound as if your dogs are that much of a problem if they are indoors though and if it's only when someone knocks on the door then it sounds like someone is being petty!
 
are you sure they don't bark? IT may be a case of having a monitor fitted to monitor noise, and so long as they are not barking a lot it will be fine.
 
Oberon said:
Thank you.

Still feel stung that someone would rattle an email off just for the fun of it, without a thought to how much it would hurt me....but I do feel much better that it's just a noise complaint.

Years ago, Xara would sit on the windowsill of the living room and rain GSD fury on anyone who would come within a 100 yards of the house
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But she hasn't been able to get on the windowsill for months now:(

And they are left in the hallway when we go out, so they can't see anyone approach and will only bark when someone knocks on the door.

So anyone have any ammo for my visit?
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Yeah, tell them your neighbour is a swinger and has regular sex parties accompanied by the sounds of whips and yelps.

My lot bark when anybody knocks on the door, I don't discourage it, we live in the middle of nowwhere and believe that any sap wishing to cause trouble would think twice after hearing my lot. My neighbour, (single, middle-aged), after one too many, believes he is Eric Clapton and I have to put up with him playing You Look Wonderful Tonight at 10.30pm.
 
blazingsaddles said:
My neighbour, (single, middle-aged), after one too many, believes he is Eric Clapton and I have to put up with him playing You Look Wonderful Tonight at 10.30pm.
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My other neighbours are Bon Jovi when they're drunk
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I did ask them a while ago if there was any noise from my son playing on his Xbox and they said the only noise that comes out of our house is us shouting at Salem
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I am confident they are not barking excessively as they are rarely alone in the house and when they are (once every two weeks), the max is for 4 hours. They are not nervy or yappy dogs. They will bark when you knock on the door...but that's only for a minute.

I don't think that is out of the ordinary.
 
I hate this kind of thing. Years ago we had a pair of ex-racing greyhounds and someone called the dog warden claiming they barked all the time. She sat out front of my house for 40 minutes at a time it was claimed they barked the most, and even when she knocked on the door and the dogs were looking out the window at her, there wasn't a peep out of either one. She had a look at them, said they were lovely dogs and that was the end of it! We had a neighbor who always gave us funny looks when we were out and about, and suspect she was just trying to stir trouble. Honestly, you would think people had better things to do with their time. The dogs I have now only bark a couple times when someone is at the door like most other dogs around here do, and we've never had any trouble.
 
Moomin1 said:
Glad to hear that dog wardens do actually follow barking complaints up, as I have a neighbour with two dogs who goes out all day and they bark none stop from morning to evening, one after the other. It's incessant and extremely irritating as we live in a quiet neighbourhood.

Doesn't sound as if your dogs are that much of a problem if they are indoors though and if it's only when someone knocks on the door then it sounds like someone is being petty!
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I too have neighbours with dogs that bark non-stop. I have noted 4-5hrs as the record so far. On top of that they bark through the night. I have been woken at 4am by the dogs barking, and it means in the summer I can't have the window open at night, beacuse you hear them. Even worse is that fact they they are 1/2 a mile from me!

Sadly the dog warden around here is a lazr so and so who can't be bothered to return phone calls, so despite many many attempts to contect her over the last 2 yrs, I'm still waiting for a return call!
 
Bit strange I think, my neighbour threatened to report my dogs years ago and I phoned the dog warden to find out how to deal with something like this as the dogs were not barking, only when someone came to the door.

The dog warden told me that they would come to the house several times, at different times of the day to see if there was any barking.

They can't really establish if there is repeated or prolonged barking with one visit.

If someone does come round, I would recommend videoing the whole thing so you have a record.

Same neighbour reported me to the RSPCA and I really wished I had video'd that visit - the guy claimed he examined the dog when in reality he was scared to come within 2 m of it!!

Anyway, try not to worry too much.
If it is your neighbour though, I would get a solicitor to write them a letter pointing out the consequences that their malicious accusations could have for them.
 
Just finished a 12 hour shift after getting absolutely no sleep last night.

I just led there from 21.30 till 05.40 and worried:(
 
If it is noise, whoever complained will be asked to fill out a diary for 3 weeks. You will be informed when this is. If you are sure your dogs don't bark, fine. If they can be a bit vocal, you can take appropriate steps during the monitoring period. Don't worry!
 
Oberon

You need to play this very cute, take in what they have to say and avoid giving any direct answers at this time, just test the water as to how they are planning to deal with this before you commit yourself.

My sister went through hell a few years ago from a complaint by a miserable Ba*stard of a neighbour who has now met his maker! But she was dragged through it by the local council and was very thankful that she got legal advice. Her's are Huskies and the neighbour across the road did not even know she had dogs in the 10 years she had lived there!!! At the time she had 9, so they were not at all noisey!!!! But that did not stop the council having a pop and trying to limit the number of dogs while they had an excuse!! So just be alert!
 
My neighbour has threated to contact the council because my dog barks. I was really worried and upset like you.

My Gsd can be noisy in the garden but I now go out with her early and late so she does not bark. I bought a voice activated dictaphone to record when I go out and so far the only noise on it was he dog yawning.

The annoying thing is that I have to put up with noisy teenagers, kids in the garden playing on trampolines doors banging etc etc!

Maybe get yourself a dictaphone, works well and was only a few pounds off ebay.
Other neighbours say they never hear barking.
maybe keep a log of when the dog barks so you cn show the dog warden.
Good luck and try not to worry.
 
Dogs bark, birds sing and cats **** in your borders. Fact. Your neighbour has an axe to grind and personally I would take that axe and point it at them. Record every little thing they do and don't do - if you hear them so much as fart, write it down. If their bins haven't been emptied, write it down. Life is too short I know, but if someone wants to start something, come back stronger.:)
 
Oberon - please try not to worry as it really sounds like your dogs are not barking excessively. We had a problem a couple of years ago when our neighbour kept 8 dogs at the bottom of his garden which overlooked ours. They barked very early in the morning from about 5.30am til about 7.30am until he walked them (which mainly consisted of them rampaging of the farmers field and my paddocks baying their heads off!) then they barked every time they heard a noise or saw something in the garden - very frequently- and then between 5pm and 9pm until they were let out to rampage the fields again.

We complained after they went for our chickens and the owner didn't even say sorry. The council were helpful but said we had to show the barking was unreasonable, we had to keep a diary (each day an a4 sheet of paper was filled) for 3 weeks and they also gave us recording equipment. Tbh it was a nightmare for us. The council officer after looking at all that evidence said it was a hard case as we had to show the noise was unreasonable and to actually get anything done about it was be a long and hard process as well as an expensive one. Also the owner was apparently very helpful and had attempted to reduce the barking ( he kept one of his dogs inside instead!). Our evidence on its own was not enough and we also had to ask our neighbours to complain - 2 did, 2 didn't because they were scared of the owner. Thankfully our problem went away before we got to the stage of going to court and presenting the evidence because he got sacked and had to leave, ahhh shame.

What I am trying to say is that your dogs do not sound unreasonable at all. you sound a responsible dog owner doing everything to mitigate the complaint. There is no way the council will see your dogs as a nuisance and being unreasonable.

I hope that helps
 
Dog wardens just left.

They were scared of Salem (who stood at the door wiggling like a happy lab) and they were none too keen on coming in
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I was a bit sneaky and was washing the front door when they arrived...so the dogs didn't bark at all ;)

They agreed there are no issues and that it's likely a neighbour problem.

I didn't walk them at all yesterday....and only for 20 minutes the day before that, so I showed them to the wardens in their most hyper state - which is not hyper at all :)

Salem sat and gave them paw.
Xara shuffled around in the background.

I even took all my nerves and anxiety and allowed myself to well up a bit when I explained that Xara won't be around too much longer.....which made me look vulnerable;)

I had the extra ammo of having asked all the neighbours (except THE neighbour) yesterday if there was excessive barking....and all of them laughed and shared stories of their own dealings with THE neighbour
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So PHEW!!!

I'm going to have a bacon butty and a brew and relax! :)
 
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