Have any of you ever gotten complaints from neighbors and or letters sent to you about your dogs barking? And if you have how was it resolved? Does it become a city/legal issue with the noise? I ask this because we are going to try renting a detached house in a quieter town rather than rent a n apartment which would be cheaper for us. We have very good dogs that we have had for 10 plus years. But our oldest dog is now deaf and when we leave home sometimes after a few hours she goes on a 1 hour barking spree. and we dont want to disturb neighbors that share walls with us. Any insight?

A barking dog is horrible for neighbours. For every lettter or complaint you get there are probably 5 other people who'll suffer in silence. A barking dog is a disaster if you live in a flat,apt, semi-detached house. I love dogs but you have to make sure that if it barks it doesnt disturb the neigbours, a detached house wud be perfect. What I did with my dog when I left the house was switch on the radio and put it on some talkshow.

A barking dog is horrible for neighbours. For every lettter or complaint you get there are probably 5 other people who'll suffer in silence. A barking dog is a disaster if you live in a flat,apt, semi-detached house. I love dogs but you have to make sure that if it barks it doesnt disturb the neigbours, a detached house wud be perfect. What I did with my dog when I left the house was switch on the radio and put it on some talkshow.

It is nice to hear from a pet owner who is actually bothered whether their barking dogs disturb others. I live next door to a family who have had a dog for 6 months now. When they got the dog it howled whenver they left the house. That was disturbing enough, but it now just barks, and bark and barks..... We pointed out to them a few months ago that is really was awful and they were taking the dog to obedience classes. Well looks like they gave up with that and now it just barks at all hours and they seem uninterested in trying to get it to stop. A behavioural issue rather than a health one.

Unfortunately in such a crowded country, especially if you are in the randstad I am not sure there is anywhere you can go to avoid disturbing neighbours. Our neighbour's dog is outside in the garden regularly, the noise echoes off all the other houses here and it sounds awful. Funnily enough the dog owner thinks nothing of going across the street to complain about music......

A difficult issue I think!

Dutch appartments are notoriously UNsoundproof.Barking dogs are unacceptable.Usually this just leads to feuding between neighbors,but if someone is really persistant between the cops and the housing authorities it can lead to fines/legal action.Even detached housing here can be closer quarters than you're used to-be prepared to deal with pissed off neighbors.Personally I find rat poison effective.

The comment about the rat poison is uncalled for. The topic starter is clearly a responsible person and is concerned about disturbing others.

When doggie is barking too loudly and its proudly owner refuses to remediate this situation, I recommend slitting the throat of sweet furry pet so that the ears of the neighbours are not offended anymore while fourlegged friend can continue to bark all day long without causing any harm!*


* humour intended....

well if you are a real dog lover then please dont make jokes like that anymore. When I was young our dog got poisoned (although it was not intended for her). I have been trying for years to find out who did this, and all I can say that this person was quite lucky that I never did. Hurting other people's childeren and pets are probably the stupidest things a person can do.

sorry double post!

My sister died from a contageous disease.I guess I should have a politically correct fit everytime someone makes a joke about contageous diseases. I guess that would make me a pinhead.You and the other Einstein need to learn the difference between the word and the act.Just to put you at ease I would support public castration of such an act.(With the dogs-not so much for the children)

Actually, I've always wanted my own personal psychotic stalker.Maybe we should just let him go and see how weird he can get?

I may get shot down here, but have you thought about a bark collar?
It may sound inhumane, but I had the same problem with my dog and had tried everything else I could think of... this was the only thing that was effective without me there to administer training, which was exactly the tme he would bark his head off!!

The collar emits a very mild vibration first before it shocks the dog. Yes I've tried teh shock collar on myself... and no it's not exactly pleasant, but the second it happens, it's over already.

The benefit of this is that the dog learns really fast. Within a week, he was not barking and I tried taking it off... unfortunately it started again. This time when I put it on, I removed the batteries, and it turned out that he just knew the collar meant not to bark, so he actually can never get shocked now but still remembers not to bark.

After about 8 weeks he was fully trained and we only use the collar when we are leaving him somewhere he is not used to.

Good luck

Sounds like a good idea. I'd also test things like that on myself before using it on the dog

I wonder why some dogs bark and other don;t. I mean, dogs are all expressive in their own ways, but my maltese rarely barks. Probably 3 times a day and is silent most of the time. Then again my shep used to be the same, but did bark loudly if people came to the door.

K1, The idea of the rat poison wasn't meant seriously although as an animal lover myself reading that I see how it could have been taken wrongly. But your reaction.... two wrongs don't exactly make a right

I've just lost my dog and some of the comments you make are quite upsetting. Frightfully there actually are sick people out there who do these awful things to animals, but it's not the people on this part of the forum. People who look at topics for pets are usually pet owners living here who are asking for advice and genuinely do care for their pets very much.

I often wondered who occupied the padded room next to old Jim M. Guess we found out....

we have 3 smallish dogs and although they don't bark when left home alone (at least i don't think they do) they do bark when excited, or if they hear strange noises at night or when they're getting ready to go for their walk....they can be shrill and annoying and we're busy with the puppy at a puppy course hopefull to curb this behavior....so i've done a lot of reading/research about this barking thing...and there seems to be a few schools of thought. some people make a sharp noise when the dogs bark (like a few coins in a can) and this disturbs the dog enough to get him to stop...of a quick spray of water from a plant spray thingy...(which i have used to some success....)...i know some people who swear by the shock-collar but i don't think i could...

i pray a lot that we don't get complaints (so far so good) as we live in a townhouse, both sides taken....but what helps i think is that ALL our neighbours have kids...NOISY kids...and kids who make BIG noisy messes outside and sometimes pick our flowers, etc....so there's some sort of equality here...social control of sorts...so we're not too happy with the kids and maybe they aren't about the dogs but it balances out.

i do know the most disturbing dogs in our entire neighbourhood are those left outside in the garden on their own the entire day...boredom=noise.

I never understand why people get a dog to leave outside all day? Of course I can understand if they are working dogs and sleep outside in their kennel, but I dunno, just think it's a bit cruel to have a dog if the family is out all day. Not a very nice life if most of it is wasted alone in a garden... no wonder they bark.

Thankfully, it's impossible for Malamutts (sic) to bark ... they howl like wolves, and given the fact they're a quarter pure Grey Wolf, when the howl, it's as though they're singing!!!

I've never seen anything but smiles from people when they howl on the street or a park or in a bar or wherever as a friendly attempt to attract other dogs' attention.

I just noticed your post. Normally I agree with your comments. However, in this instance, would you care to meet me and show me where you buy this effective Rat Poison?

There are sick Motherfvckers that DO leave baited food in parks, etc. in an attempt to put dogs and indiscriminate animals, maybe a toddler will succumb too at some point, to an agonising, painful death. I'll feed them their own choice in snacks if I get hold of any of these scrawny, limp dicked humanoid bloodsacks.

I just heard on the news that they found 27 dogs, most sheps, clubbed to death, somewhere in Belgium (Wallonia). I didn't understand where exactly. I'll come back as soon as I know (if ever). The police doesn't know yet who the butchers are and why the massacre took place.

If it had been a serious comment I'd join you with my very own very effective baseball bat.It wasn't -relax.I have two(well behaved,unlike most) dogs myself.It should have been obvious I meant the dogs owners.