Please leave a comment and tell me what you would do. Because of the way our houses are laid out, our neighbors' large patio is about 10 yards from our bedroom windows. They have a huge dog that, as dogs are known to do, barks. BARKS LOUD. It started barking sometime around 7 AM on this glorious Saturday morning and barked solidly without pause for at least 45 minutes. It stopped for a while and has continued all morning. All of our kids' bedrooms are on that side of the house also. It basically sounds like the dog is in our bedroom.
I know from neighborhood gossip that these neighbors had a feud with the original owners of our house. I have no idea what it was about. But I do know that they are prone to being angry with their neighbors. I don't want them to be angry or defensive with me, but I DO want to talk to them about their dog's barking. But they must already be aware of their dog's barking, so will talking to them even accomplish anything? Is there any way to phrase it to where I don't sound too complain-y? But don't I have a right to expect a quieter atmosphere at 7 AM in the morning?
How many times should this "wake-me-up barking" happen before I should talk to them?
What would you say? If they get mad and refuse to do anything, can we poison their dog?
Let me know.
11 comments:
my first question would be - did it wake up your kids?
my neighbor's dog barks as well - right next to my room - but most of the time I can tune him out.
I don't think you can poison the dog, but I'm sure your approach to the neighbors will be polite and respectful....how long have you been in the house? has this been constant? if so, then I think you are due to have a talk with them. take them a bribe - it can't hurt!
good luck!!
When a dog barks for so long I start to wonder why he is barking. It could be that he just wants to be let in but in my wild imagination it could also be a bark that something isn't right. So I would take that approach to begin with. I would politely ask the neighbor for their phone number so that the next time it happens you can call and ask them to check that everything is okay. If they don't respond I would move on to reporting it to police or animal control just so there is some record and an outside source involved. And yes, if it ever wakes up the kids, you've got even more precedent for complaining.
I know you're not a fan of dogs, so this can't be easy, but I'm sure you'll find a way to approach your neighbors. best of luck!
We have a similar situation at our house. We've never confronted them, because we hate confronting. The dog is a Pomeranian that yaps all night. There are a lot of critters around our neighborhood and she loves trying to scare them with her yappy bark. Michael and I don't even notice her anymore and Audrey has never seemed to notice the barking. It did bother my brother to no end when he spent the night. I'd rather keep the peace with my neighbor now that it doesn't wake us up anymore. If we were constantly having people spending the night, I might have a different viewpoint. I get more irritated at revving motorcycles at 1 am.
There is nothing really that they can do about their dog barking. The only thing they could do is to take it in the house at nights...but that may not be an option for them. Whatever you do, don't call the cops on the dog (that is unless the neighbors refuse to respond), like our neighbors have done with ours multiple times. That just causes them not to want to talk to you. Our neighbors have never actually said anything to us, they just complain to the cops. Anyways, all that being said, ask them if it's a possibility to take it in the house at night, and maybe crate it if it can't be in the house.
That's my 2 cents.
Well...we had a similar situation for about a week one time but we found out our neighbor was just dog-sitting. Whew! But, we were making a plan because this dog was literally on the other side of our bedroom wall like your neighbor's dog.
I do think your expectation is reasonable and I think that expectation applies whether it wakes up your kids or not. Your sleep is just as important as theirs.
Our idea was to talk to them in person first and be as nice as possible when explaining that it was hard to sleep. We were hoping to brainstorm some ideas to keep the barking at bay. Then, if that didn't work, we would have called an outside authority (not sure what) or done something else to try and solve the problem. Just ignoring the dog was not an option for us as we literally got no sleep.
I hope this all works out for you and you can find a solution. The neighbors may have to do something about the barking whether they'd like to or not...it's part of the responsiblity of owning a dog in my opinion.
We have the same problem only with lawn mowers. (I may have blogged about this.) For the last two years, every Saturday morning we get lawn mowers mowing right next to our bedroom window from 6:30-8:00am. We held our breath until this past summer. They decided to complain to us about how we accidently mowing on their side, so we politely brought up the fact that their mowers are too loud. They told us there wasn't anything they could do because they'd hate to lose good help. (They're in their 70's.)
They also had problems with the previous homeowners who lived here before us. If it continues when we have children, I am calling the city. It's straight up a noise violation in the city of Dallas. You could always use that if you needed to.
Krystal, I think it's actually a law that construction workers cannot operate their machines before a certain time of the morning in residential areas. I would think it should be the same for lawn mowers. Thats awfully early for that.
I've heard someone talk about that gadget your hsband suggested. For the life of me I can't remember who it was, but it worked in getting their neighbors dog to stop barking.
And no you can't poison their dog, it's a living thing and all and it's not to blame, it's owners are. Plus, it would be a criminal act and since you blogged about it you'd likely be caught!
My brother had a problem with this in the Atlanta area. He got online and found the city's rules on dog barking. He printed it off and hung it on his neighbor's door. When he got home from work the next day the dog was gone! He was pretty ammused with his handiwork! Good luck to you....
Brandy's idea about checking on the city's rules regarding the barking would be worth checking out for sure...personally.....the poison sounded rather promising to me.......hope that gets solved before our stay over there!
We've had this problem in the past and just called the city. The barking stopped, but I'm not quite sure what happened to the dog as we haven't seen it either... hmmm...
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