Problem neighbour dogs barking

We have a neighbour who like Dobermans and ever since we moved here 6 years ago they have been a pain with noise and barking. There was actually a time when it went totally quiet for a month and I was told that the council had taken the dogs away following complaints as some kind of warning.

One of the two dogs then disappeared and it did lessen a little but when you work from home as I do it's frankly annoying in the extreme. I did once mention to the lady that her dog was rather noisy and she responded with disinterested shrug saying "Jasmine likes to talk"...

Now march forward and about a year ago a second Doberman appeared followed by a third one more recently and I'm starting to suspect she is breeding them, even though she works during the day and they are just left for hours running around the back garden unattended.

With three of them the barking has really become silly at times and we can't even let our dog out in the garden for a few minutes to potter about because her dogs go ballistic and I then have to restrain Bailey. There is a tall fence between the two houses so I'm not worried in that sense but it has become stressful and frankly it's a pain having to constantly calm my dog down inside the house when she hears these dogs barking non stop.

These are all privately owned houses and I've been told it's remarkably difficult getting any action taken in situations like this but it just seems ridiculous that this woman is out of the house for 8-10 hours a day and these dogs are always barking. On a sunny day we can't even sit in the garden. Does anybody have any experience or better still solutions for dealing with this kind of nuisance?

The only thing I can recommend is your local council. There are quite strict noise abatement laws nowadays and they might agree to send somebody around to speak to her.

I have a neighbour with a yappy westie, I think she has fitted a dog flap as the dog starts yapping from 5am on & off til 10pm! This really winds Katy up when she hears it as she will start barking. Thinking about speaking to her but her house is on the market so hopefully she will be gone soon. But a few years ago we had 3 dogs living nearby, I came home one sunny day & thought ooo i'll have the door open, all 3 dogs started up, I went out my door & shouted its like ******* battersey dogs home round here & went in slamming my door. It all went quiet all of a sudden >

I wondered if anything had improved in that sense. I was told before that you needed to keep precise diaries for several months and that if the dogs weren't barking consistently for more than a couple of hours at a time it wasn't considered a nuisance. The basic message was that councils didn't really care because it wasn't their neighbour.

In general I think that the council views on noise nuisance has improved over the past 10 years or so.

The trouble is, I think that it's very much a regional thing - some councils are really hot on it, but others don't consider it important.

Jenc wrote:I have a neighbour with a yappy westie, I think she has fitted a dog flap as the dog starts yapping from 5am on & off til 10pm! This really winds Katy up when she hears it as she will start barking. Thinking about speaking to her but her house is on the market so hopefully she will be gone soon. But a few years ago we had 3 dogs living nearby, I came home one sunny day & thought ooo i'll have the door open, all 3 dogs started up, I went out my door & shouted its like ******* battersey dogs home round here & went in slamming my door. It all went quiet all of a sudden >

A westie must be annoying but 3 Dobermans are downright loud and they'll bark just because a car door closes or if somebody walks past. Basically anything sets them off and when you are working from home it's awful trying to concentrate on work or phone a client with that in the background. I like your idea of mentioning Battersea though...

On one occasion we actually met them out on a walk and her mouthy Dobermans didn't seem half so confident without the 6 foot fence in middle. Actually they looked downright nervous when they finally met the staffie neighbour face to face

Caryll wrote:In general I think that the council views on noise nuisance has improved over the past 10 years or so.

The trouble is, I think that it's very much a regional thing - some councils are really hot on it, but others don't consider it important.

I'm in Cornwall and it's the sort place you live because you are looking for quiet but the council here is pretty notorious for being one of the most useless, inefficient and wasteful in the country. There is a place where I frequently take Bailey for a walk and you can see council workers parked in a row skiving off on extended breaks reading newspapers every morning for a couple hours.

Noisy neighbours are a real bug bear for me. Our solution is to move but that is not always a solution and you may not want to move. You do have my deepest sympathies and hope you find a solution very soon.

I do sympathise Ashley; I used to have Dobermanns years ago - lovely dogs, but being bred for the past 100 years or so as guard dogs their nature is to give voice very loudly at anything they think is abnormal, and unfortunately that is most things! I only had one dobermann at a time, but they were very vocal. A lady living not far from me had 5 of them, and their neighbours were driven demented.

It is terribly difficult to stop a dobe from barking - it is a knee-jerk reaction and hard-wired in them and each dog needs training to stop barking when it's told to, which is quite difficult in itself - impossible if the owner is not there.

As Caryll says, your only option is the council. However, as you say Ashley, you may well find that they will require you keep diaries, recordings etc before they can take action. (I recently complained to my local councillor about a multiple-occupancy house nearby about the noise the humans inside were making, and that is what I was told to do. Oh, and btw, I was told that any noise heard "in the street" was not counted - it had to be heard through the walls, however that may not apply to dogs - I don't know).

A word from the council is not likely to improve the situation unless the woman either agrees to give up her job and concentrate on the dogs (assuming she has given them enough training to shup up the noise when they're told to) or agrees to get rid of her dogs.

I wish I could be more helpful and wish you the best of luck.

A few months ago, we had to put a noise complaint in to the council for next doors two dogs. They sent us a form we had to fill in: what time the barking started and stopped, on a scale of 1-10 how annoying was it, on a scale 1-10 how loud was it. If you sent the form back with enough information, they would then set up a noise recorder so they could gain evidence

However, the owners also recieved a letter regarding the complaint so they took immediate action and the barking stopped.

Its a lenghty process but it may be worth it. I'm not sure what the owner could do to stop her dogs mind, like Lynda said, they're vocal dogs.

Best of luck

there is no excuse on the owners part. if the dogs are happy and satisfied they will be quiet. a good long walk in the morning would sort them out.
Neither of my two bark but instead howl which is infinatly more annoying... I went out one night when marley was a pup and when I was walking home I could hear him three streets away and was mortified. now I make sure they get a good long walk before i go out so they just sleep until i get home.
in your circumstances im afraid the council is your only option, not sure they can do much about the daytime noise though but worth a try

My neighbour tells me I am irresponsible with my dogs

We are almost always at home , the dogs have everything they need and more love than anyone can ever imagine, when they go out with me it's for long leisurely walks and loads of off lead play when I'm at home. When I'm not at home thay go out with the OH and daughter for even longer walks on lead to make up for the lack of off lead.
When they go out in the car they are belted up and harnessed

My neighbour has a young spaniel pup (about 8 months now I think) that WAS the focus of attention when they got him for their daughter. He is unrestrained in the car often seeing them go out with him on the passenger knee in the front . Walks are now maybe down to a 20 minute one per day with a longer one at weekends and they go out for 6-8 hours at a time (not through work might I add for social stuff like family visits etc) the dog constantly barks from the moment they leave until they return , upsetting our 2 dogs. Gets restricted to downstairs with no nightime interaction (Tilly is on my chair with me as I write this)


Now who is irresponsible

Dave wrote:


Now who is irresponsible

def not you mate, hate people that "think" they know dogs and pass judgment on others yet when it comes to them....well thats your neighbours really aint it. i write too with a large dog head covering half my keyboard and the younster chewing away on her stag bar so know just how you feel.

Don't they make you sick. I take Katy for 30min run off lead in the morning, then she comes to work with me running round the gardens. When we get home or on the way home we will go for another 1hr off lead run. She will still have a bark at anyone that comes near our house.

One aspect of this I really hate is that neighbours from the other side have often thought it was our dog causing all the noise and lets face it people are quick to think the worst of staffies.

Thinking in practical terms our neighbour with the Dobermans is a single woman with a young child who is out of the house for at least 8-10 hours a day. Having three large dogs like that with no real exercise is madness and that's why I'm convinced she would only be doing this if she was breeding them for money.

One thought I did have was to mention this to one of the local police community support officers but I get the impression they are on the streets just to hoodwink us into thinking there is law and order but what do they actually do?

Dave - "the dog constantly barks from the moment they leave until they return "

This is often the problem isn't it - separation anxiety. And the trouble is, the owner just won't know unless the neighbours tell them.

Many, many years ago I had an adjoining neighbour who got a dog. Tbh I can't remember now if this single dog made a noise when she went out at night (and she did like her social life!). What I do remember is when she got another dog to keep the first one company. The constant noise they made ALL through the night when she went to visit her boyfriend was unbelievable. She got done for drink driving soon afterwards and was forced to stay at home, at least the dogs were quiet although Elvis Presley warbling It's Now or Never at full volume on continuous loop was even worse. Thank God she got pregnant soon after and moved out.

If only everyone was perfect (like us )

ashleyk wrote:One aspect of this I really hate is that neighbours from the other side have often thought it was our dog causing all the noise and lets face it people are quick to think the worst of staffies.

Thinking in practical terms our neighbour with the Dobermans is a single woman with a young child who is out of the house for at least 8-10 hours a day. Having three large dogs like that with no real exercise is madness and that's why I'm convinced she would only be doing this if she was breeding them for money.

One thought I did have was to mention this to one of the local police community support officers but I get the impression they are on the streets just to hoodwink us into thinking there is law and order but what do they actually do?

Ashley, I hope you can explain to your other side neighbours the difference between a Staffie bark and a Dobermann bark, they are very different.

And yes, your Doberman neighbour should be more responsible and give them proper exercise, although tbh that won't stop them barking even if dog-tired from walking; they can jump up barking madly from the deepest sleep if any sound at all reaches their sub-conscious.

The only way you can sure that she is breeding them if is when you see them pregnant.

And no, I'm not sure what police community officers do either! I know they don't have powers of arrest, but that's all I know - does anyone know better?

Lynda wrote:

Ashley, I hope you can explain to your other side neighbours the difference between a Staffie bark and a Dobermann bark, they are very different.

And yes, your Doberman neighbour should be more responsible and give them proper exercise, although tbh that won't stop them barking even if dog-tired from walking; they can jump up barking madly from the deepest sleep if any sound at all reaches their sub-conscious.

The only way you can sure that she is breeding them if is when you see them pregnant.

And no, I'm not sure what police community officers do either! I know they don't have powers of arrest, but that's all I know - does anyone know better?

I could see and hear puppies there a while back that she left out all night and I'd hear them sometimes at 2.00am but they all seemed to go after a couple of months. Then the second dog appeared and now there is a 3rd dog that looks like a young adult. I think they were breeding when we first arrived six years ago and she's decided to start again for the money. As for the difference in barking sound it's obvious to us but perhaps not to somebody living a couple doors further down the road.

Oh Lord. If you saw puppies then that's pretty conclusive. And the pups were left out all night? That is absolutely disgraceful. If there is another batch of puppies and they are left out all night, personally I would contact the RSPCA. They might not do anything (although I may be wrong), but at least your report would be evidence against what sounds more and more like a very irresponsible dog owner.

I take your point about difference in sound of dog barks heard further down the road, especially if they are not dog-aware people themselves. If the complaints keep coming to you, it might be worth visiting them and getting them to listen to and understand the difference in the barks, it's not difficult to differentiate them once the volume and the depth of tone is pointed out, and may save you some hassle from that quarter at least.

I know we are in different countries so the rules will differ, but in the last council I live in they had a time limit on barking to 3 min per hour. If the barking exceeded that over a period of time you can contact you council, they did ask for a diary of a few weeks of when the barking occurred etc and they also said on their website that they try and first work with the humans and the dog to through training solve the problem.
It might be worth contacting your council for advice?

our elderly neighbours have a westie who is a lovely dog but when their carer arrives at 7.30 every morning they put her outside for 2 hours and she barks constantly but tessa never joins in thank god.on the other hand the neighbours on our other side tell me that if they didn't see us out with her they wouldn't know we have a dog.even when we are at work all day they just don't hear a peep out of her.but my experience is that dogs who are kept outside will always bark themselves stupid.

Thankfully, Staffies (in my limited experience at least) are not overly yappy dogs. My dog will yap if he inadvertently shuts himself into a room, will give a warning bark or two if something really unusual reaches his ears (Good Guard Dog, good boy!) or a few woofs if he hears a dog barking outside (tbh more woofs if he is outside and hears a dog barking.)

But he is a rest cure regarding barking in any of its forms compared with my Dobermanns (much as I loved them). They would only give a woof if they wanted to go outside (which tbh I wish Kuchar would do); otherwise they would yell their heads off at any and all sounds they heard.