Complaint about Excessive Barking, what exactly is excessive?

ska_lover

FBaby wrote: »

Dogs are like kids they are much much less annoying when they are yours. .

Completely agree lol

miriamac

OP, your neighbour could very well be just as bad as you've depicted him - but he could still be right about the barking!

I agree with the advice to make your own recording - particularly covering the times when you're not in the house.

bouicca21

When I had problems with a noisy neighbour, many many years ago, their immediate neighbour told them there was no problem. Never found out whether they were deaf or just keen to keep good relations.



OP: Unless you have some sort of cam/audio recording device you can't know what the dogs are like when you are not there. Maybe they are fine - but it is possible that you will have to prove it.

unholyangel

Sometimes its the "nice" neighbours you would least suspect. They're hesitant to approach it themselves in case it sours relations/they dont like confrontation and so make complaints through official channels that will allow the issue to be dealt with without any risk for them.

As for the noise, it won't help you if it differs council to council but mine seems to take a common sense approach - recognises that dogs will bark and that in certain circumstances (ie barking in response to someone entering the house) its perfectly acceptable but that frequent & prolonged periods of barking is not. Hopefully yours has a similar approach.

Redacted

4 hours a day may not seem a lot but a lot can happen in that time.

We looked after my OH’s parent’s dog for 2 nights a couple of years back. We thought it would be fine. She barks at the postman and when people come to the door at oh’s parent’s house but otherwise seemed fine.

It was not fine. Turns out she suffers really badly from separation anxiety when away from them. They had no idea. We couldn’t leave her alone for enough time to make a cuppa. One of us slept on the sofa next to her each night because she howled when left alone. Oh’s parent’s genuinely didn’t have a clue.

Get a doggy cam and see what happens when you’re gone. We hear next door’s dogs a lot when they are out; they are a lot quieter when they’re home.

hollydays

soffkay wrote: »

HI guys i have just got a letter thru post from council saying they have had a complaint about my dogs excessive barking (i have three dogs).

please can someone explain to me each of the following parts of letter

part 1.
it mentions the following, it is environmentals health departments role to investigate all cases that effect well-being and comfort of land and if noise is considered a statutory nusiance or not..

part 2
the person whos complained is keeping a diary of dates and times duration of barking. if complaints continue, council officers will undertake visits and may use noise monitoring equipment to gather evidence. you will not be informed of these visits.

part 3
if investigation confirms statutory nusiance council oblidged to serve a statutory nuisance abatement notice,(what is this!??) and if the terms of such notice are breached further action will be taken, this could include a court prosecution and the seizure of any noise equipment in the property causing a nuisance.

can someone please please pleaseee! help me as to what this all means...

in my opinion the dogs are not excessively barking, but i would really like to know what is going to be deemed excessive to the council tho please!?

If you are away from the home, how do you know how much they bark?
I had a friend who had the same issue and it turned out her dog had dementia.

Davesnave

It's the 4 hours a day unsupervised that needs checking and that's so easy to do. The rest isn't something you'd need to be worried about regarding intervention from officialdom.

Most dogs are either optimists or pessimists, so the pessimistic ones think you'll never return, no matter how routine your absences are. They will whine and bark to relieve their own anxiety.

However, intelligent dogs that aren't worried about you returning may still bark out of boredom. We had one of those and didn't realise; I could leave her outside a shop for half an hour and be sure of her still being there, no problem, but in that situation she was alert, almost on guard and had plenty of passers by to watch etc. She was trained into that at classes. At home, with nothing going on, a different behaviour soon showed itself. She wasn't trained to be bored!


We were lucky in that our dog could often go to work with one of us, but also because the elderly neighbour who reported the barking to us liked the dog and would cheerfully collect her/take her for walks etc. However, after that experience, with busier lives, we just resolved not to have another dog.

motorguy

FBaby wrote: »

You're out 4 hours a day and don't know how much they bark then. 6 x 30 seconds in 4 hours is not great but if that's what they do when you're with them you can assume it's likely more when you're not.

Dogs are like kids they are much much less annoying when they are yours. No point in defending them on a 'Dogs are dogs' basis. What matters is what they've recorded and what the council might record themselves. In the end they'll either agree with you or they'll agree with your neighbour.

As i said in an earlier post, years ago we'd a neighbour with a dog and it rarely barked when they were there. Barked constantly when they werent though.....

Money_maker

FBaby wrote: »

Dogs are like kids they are much much less annoying when they are yours. No point in defending them on a 'Dogs are dogs' basis.

Exactly. You see people with groups of little dogs out walking them and sometimes they stop for a chat and the dogs get a bee in their bonnet about something and bark, bark, bark. The owner doesn't even react. It's like their immune to it or deaf. No discipline or even telling the dog to stop. Sod that, I wouldn't put up with any dog on the end of the lead I'm holding making such a racket likewise for my children.


Neighbour has a dog and a dog flap. She sleeps at the front of the house. Think she has no idea that the dog spends over an hour outside barking at the wildlife around midnight.

dekaspace

I had neighbours at a previous property that had lovely dogs but she would go out all day and leave them in the kitchen, all it took was for a door to be closed for dogs to jump around and bark but when she was in they never barked at anything I put up with it as I barely heard a noise if I was in the bedroom only in living room due to the dogs being in kitchen.


At current property I rarely hear noise from the dog upstairs except my neighbour stupidly got laminate flooring in against tenancy rules, got a dog against tenancy rules and likes guests round who bring kids and they get exicted and chase dog which barks in response, and sometimes when they leave the dog alone again all it takes is something like a fridge door closing to set a dog off.