Neighbour's dog - advice please

KiKi

Hello - looking for some advice from dog owners, or people who understand dogs! (I'm a cat person, never had a dog!)

I recently bought and moved into a new house. My neighbour, who rents the place next door, also moved in on the same day, one week ago. She has two dogs, and we're both animal lovers. She mentioned to me that her dogs are a bit barky, so to let her know if they're a problem.

Her dogs bark occasionally - when someone comes to either of our front doors, or a car parks outside. But I don't mind that - it's quite a useful warning, actually!

However, one of her dogs (which are both rescues) howls when she leaves the house. I don't mean he howls for a short while - I could live with that. He howls for hours. Literally. Non-stop. Earlier in the week he howled for about 4 hours when she left. I had to turn the radio up to not hear him. It bothers me in that it's noisy, but also it worries me that he's that distressed for so long.

I've had the week off work, and I understand that they're settling in, too - so is this something that will stop? I was woken up by howling from about 0700 today, and I eventually left the house at 1000 because I couldn't bear it any longer. I got home around 1300, and he's now stopped (although she's still not home).

She has invited me to say if it's a problem, so I know I can speak to her. But I'm wondering how long I should leave it before I say anything. (I did tell her howled for hours the other day, but not as a complaint, more because she asked if I'd heard them.) They've been here a week, as have I, so is this something that's likely to stop when they get used to the new house?

I know very little about dogs, so not sure if I should wait a while? I don't want to be on bad terms with my neighbour, and she has said I can tell her. My biggest issue is that I work at home two days a week, so I'm dreading next week - I don't know how I'll work with the constant howling. But it's not just that - she can't take him out every time she leaves the house, so if she leaves the house early at the weekends, I'll be woken up by the howling.

Also, is there anything I can suggest to her, or a way to position the conversation that will make it easier for her? I want to be constructive, not difficult.

The landlord of her house is an absolute last resort - he and I share the freehold for the building, so I don't want to make things difficult between him and I, either.

Any advice on dealing with this constructively would be great. She's really good with the dogs - she takes them out three times a day for walks, she clearly loves them. One of them is fine with her leaving the house, it's just the other one.

arbrighton

Maybe ask how they seem to be settling and just mention that he was howling when she went out so could maybe do with a bit of TLC

dandelionclock30

Just tell her that the dog is more or less howling non stop,its her problem and she needs to sort it out. We had this with a neighbour whos dog used to howl when he went to the pub, so he stopped going.
Theres no miracle cures either she takes it with her or gets it a dog sitter, works with a behaviourist or you move. Sorry but thats it.

Rebel_Cause

Maybe the dog is anxious because it is a new home. Ideally, the owner should be keeping the dog company so that he/she is familar with their surroundings instead of showing signs of separation anxiety.

elsien

It might be that if she's mentioned barking, she doesn't know there's a problem with the dog howling when she's not there. The whole nature of separation anxiety is that it happens when the owner isn't around, so either she's clueless it's going on, or she's presuming that it settles down after a few minutes.

If it were me I'd tell her, for the dog's sake as well as your own, stressing that it's not the barking it's the howling when she's out. There are ways of dealing with it (do a search on here for more info, kylyr has posted some useful info in the past) but it takes time and effort on her part.

krlyr

I was the neighbour who moved in with the howling dog myself, a few years back. Unbeknownst to me, Kiki had the start of hypothyroidism and this seemed to trigger separation anxiety when we moved to our new house. It was only when a neighbour mentioned hearing barking every time we were out that we became aware - I then recorded the dogs via my laptop and found out that she was barking from nearly the minute we left, intermittantly the whole time we were gone - eek!

From both sides, I sympathise. Separation anxiety is difficult to deal with - for starters, it's hard to know it even exists if the dog is not being destructive, just noisy, until someone points it out to you. Secondly, it's pretty hard to avoid leaving your dog at all - we changed everything to minimise the times Kiki was left, for her sake and our neighbour's, but with work, the evening classes I was doing at the time, grocery shopping, etc. - and we moved around Christmas time, so it was tough with all the socialising you're expected to do too. Fortunately our family are all very dog-orientated, and Kiki was actually the family dog (she stayed with me when my mum and stepdad moved to a smaller house) so most of the time I could either take them with me to family, or drop them with a relative to be looked after when I needed to go out.

How willing/able are you to help? Would you, for example, be willing to dogsit for her? Even just temporarily, whilst she worked on getting the dog used to being left. For many dogs, it's the being alone that they dislike - Kiki didn't care who it was with her, as long as there was someone in the house. If she could crate train the dog, would you have room for a crate in your house (I know this may be tough if it's two Labradors as opposed to two Jack Russells!)?

If you not able to get that involved, then I would perhaps let them know some suggested reading - I'd really recommend the three books below

Patricia McConnell "I'll be home soon" - fairly basic, may be a bit too basic if she's quite dog-savvy, but if she has no experience with separation anxiety then it's a good start

Nicole Wilde "Don't leave me" - much more thorough, and the main book I referred to myself.

Malena DeMartini Price has another one, I think titled just "Separation anxiety" or similar - I've downloaded it but not read through it in full, just saw it was well recommended and wanted to see if it covered anything new. Really must sit down and finish it!

I'd also perhaps point her in the direction of some of the calmative products on the market - the books do mention them though. Things like the Adaptil collar/plug-in, supplements like Zykene and Calmex, things like the Thundershirt or Anxiety Wrap, etc. may help. They won't be instant fixes, but they may help. Also, a fairly new one that's proving quite useful is supplementing with Melatonin - there are various articles online if you tell her to look it up.

It's great that you seem a pretty tolerant neighbour, but don't let her fob you off. I certainly wouldn't have dreamt of leaving Kiki to bark all day, I fretted for weeks about it, spoke to my boss so I could work from home for a bit, then would nip home during lunch, etc. when I did have to leave her. I still spotcheck now and then by setting the camera up to record just to check she hasn't lapsed (diagnosing her hypothyroidism through a thorough blood panel made a huge difference as it does seem to tie in with that a lot - when her thyroid levels drop, her separation anxiety can flare up until we tweak her meds)

krlyr

Btw, the working from home could be an opening to raise the issue again if you wanted - I'd see how it was and if it howled a lot still, you could pop by and say that unfortunately the noise is becoming a more serious issue as you have conference/Skype calls to make or something along those lines, but the dog is causing too much background noise. It at least gives you a different reason to bring it up without moaning "just because", if you feel bad about bringing it up again

GwylimT

She is clearly leaving the done alone for far too long, unless it is an emergency dogs shouldn't be alone for more than four hours, they need both company and access to a toileting area.

I would talk to her and express concern, if you have a phone you could try to record the howling so she can actually hear it for herself.

KiKi

Thanks all - esp kylyr, I'll make some of those recommendations. Earlier this week she mentioned that the dogs can be a bit barky, so I did tell her that one of the dogs howled for hours, so she is aware. But this was earlier in the week, and I didn't realise it might become a 'thing'. Then today was awful.

I don't know if she's been back today - she's definitely out now, but I've been out a couple of times, so she may have come home and gone out again. If she hasn't been home, then they've definitely been alone since 0700 as that's when I awoke to the howling.

During the week, she goes to work for 0900, but comes back at lunch for an hour, then back until 1700, so they're not usually left for more than a few hours (or they haven't been this week, anyway).

I spoke to a couple of people at church today who have dogs and moved house with them, and I think I'll leave it for this week - I'm working from home twice this week (thankfully no client calls or con calls), so I'll see how it goes. If it's still a problem on Friday then I'll call round on Saturday and explain what's happening. She has offered to take that dog to work with her, but that doesn't solve the issue of the separation anxiety, or if she goes out at weekends.

I'll see what she says. I am tolerant, but I can't have a dog howling for hours on end each day, it's so very very stressful. I'm not really willing to dogsit, either - I'm either in London or working at home, and at weekends I have a life! I don't really feel that I should solve this problem, to be honest. I also have two cats, so I don't want to stress them with doggy smells! Also, she works 10 minutes down the road and comes back at lunch, so I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to pop in and calm the dogs down because she's at work.

She needs a long term solution - I'm happy to be patient, but I've bought this place, and moved in a week ago and I just want to enjoy my new house (I'm certainly not moving! I'd go to her landlord and the council before that happened). At the moment I feel like I'm walking on tenterhooks, trying not to make any noise in the hallway in case they bark and then start howling.

KiKi

In fairness to her - a pizza delivery guy just called next door and there's a guy in the house, so she obviously hasn't left them alone all day. He must have come over after lunch or something.

CathA

My daughter moved into her own place and took her dog with her. She didn't realise there was a problem with her barking a lot until the neighbour told me. A lot of it was caused by the fact that the dog had the run of the flat when my daughter was out, whereas she was crated when she lived at home with me and I went out (the dog that is, not the daughter!). As the dog could then see and hear people walking past my daughter's flat she used to bark and annoy the neighbours. Also I always left the radio on so as to cover any noises and my daughter didn't do that.

Long short story, my daughter eventually took notice of what I said (because every one knows that parents know nothing!) and put her in a crate, put the crate somewhere where she couldn't see or hear outside and left a radio on for her. Another idea was for my daughter to take an old towel to bed with her and then put it in the cage so the dog had her owner's 'smell' to reassure her.

I would definitely tell her, my daughter was not pleased the neighbour told me rather than her, although that was because I was passing rather than any other reason. Hope this helps.