My neighbour’s barking dog is a nightmare – should I just move house?

In the garden bordering mine lives a dog that barks for hours every day.

The owner lets him out around dinner time, so it’s about 8am for an hour, lunchtime for a couple of hours, between 4pm and 6pm and often later. Sometimes he’ll be out there barking non-stop for five hours while the owner repeatedly yells “Shh” from inside.

I have tried shouting but nothing happens. I have contacted the council who told me to keep a diary of when it barks.

I did this for two weeks, sent it in and they sent an investigator to talk to the owner. They must have been a dog lover because I got a message back saying ‘No case to answer’.

Three months ago I went to the neighbor in question and she said that no one had ever complained about the dog barking and that I was mean.

I have knocked on people’s doors and many neighbors told me that they are bothered by the dog’s barking, but they said they did not want to cause a fuss or confrontation.

I went back the other day and said I was fed up. I said I would start a petition to stop her from letting the dog bark in the yard.

I have lived in this house for six years and it has been bothering me since day one. What else can I do besides moving?

Jane Denton from This is Money responds: Even the most ardent animal lovers can sometimes find it frustrating when a neighborhood dog barks constantly, no matter how cute it is.

I love dogs, but I often wonder why some people want a dog if they only leave it outside for hours on end.

There is often a dog in my neighborhood that barks late into the night, from 11pm onwards, and that certainly does not sound happy, especially in the winter months.

You have tried and failed to resolve this issue through your neighbour and the council. The local council researcher you spoke to sounds useless and needs to review his job description.

It is important that you have other neighbors who feel the same way about the excessive barking. You should not feel like you have no other option than to move.

I thought it would be a good idea to seek advice from a dog behaviorist first, before consulting the suggestions of lawyers.

Aftab Ahmed, owner of The Dog Ami, a reward-based training and behavior therapy company, said: Although barking is a natural behavior and it would be discouraging if a dog did not express and share his feelings, many neighborhood disputes have been caused by barking dogs. Unfortunately, many dogs have also ended up in shelters because of their persistent barking.

There are many reasons why dogs bark excessively. It can be due to separation anxiety, medical reasons, panic or fear, guarding territory or people, or as a form of attention seeking when barking has been rewarded before.

People try to stop barking in different ways, such as spraying the dog with water, shouting or using various ‘stop barking’ products.

Most of these methods fail for one reason: they don’t address the initial motivation for the barking.

If the dog is barking due to separation anxiety or medical reasons, it could be that the dog hates being outside alone without its owner. The only way to solve separation anxiety barking is to solve the anxiety. Medication or complementary therapies can help.

If the dog’s compulsive barking has a medical cause, a veterinarian should be called to determine and treat the cause. Medication is often prescribed for this.

If the dog is barking “out of fear,” your neighbor needs to address the stimulus that is causing the fear and leading to the barking.

As mentioned, territorial barking can be a problem. If the dog barks when he senses someone or an animal coming into the yard, he is often motivated by fear. Desensitization and counterconditioning can be helpful. In addition, teaching the dog to be quiet and then rewarding him when he stops barking is a good strategy to control excessive barking.

If your neighbor’s dog is seeking attention, ignore unwanted barking that has previously been rewarded and reward alternative behaviors, such as not barking, sitting, or going to bed, to quickly reduce or eliminate excessive barking. For best results with rewarding alternative behaviors, reward the dog as soon as he is quiet or does the alternative behavior for about four seconds.

However, it is important that your neighbor first rules out barking out of boredom or loneliness. Dogs need physical, emotional, cognitive, and environmental enrichment.

It is best to consult a qualified dog behaviorist who has experience with these types of issues.

In this case, the dog owner may not be aware that the barking is affecting anyone other than you. A non-confrontational set of signatures from affected neighbors stating that the noise is a nuisance may prompt the dog owner and the council to take the matter seriously.

You can buy a cheap net fence for the dog owner to place two or three metres back from the garden boundary. This can act as a buffer against the source of a dog’s fear – often something in the neighbouring garden.

You can also choose to start a campaign together with your neighbors and offer to contribute to the training of a dog behaviorist.

While not ideal, you can also use earplugs or close your windows for the parts of the day when you are bothered by barking. You can play music or a TV in a room that is not in the yard to help dampen the barking. Again, this is not an ideal solution.

You could even buy some dog appeasing pheromones as a gift for the dog owner. Using these products can be helpful in managing anxiety disorders.

Bahareh Amani, a partner at law firm Hodge Jones and Allen, said: The first thing you should do is talk to your neighbors, because dog owners don’t always realize how noisy their dog is.

However, it appears that you have taken this step in vain.

Once you have received the petition from your neighbors, you can approach them again and tell them that there are other neighbors who are being bothered by their dogs. They may accept your position and work with you to minimize the dog’s impact.

It is very important to try to avoid confrontation and communicate in a friendly and conciliatory manner. You need to determine whether your neighbor is a tenant or the landlord. If they are a tenant, you can approach the landlord directly and ask them to talk to their tenant about their dog.

If this doesn’t help, you should check the title deeds of your property and those of your neighbors.

These are available from the Land Registry and the title deeds may contain agreements regarding the use of the properties. If so, there may be an agreement that the resident will not cause nuisance or annoyance. If such agreements do exist, you can try to enforce them on your neighbour.

However, there are other options available if you experience the dog’s barking as noise pollution.

The council is obliged to conduct investigations and take measures if the noise is classified as legal noise nuisance, in accordance with the Environmental Protection Act 1980.

It is often easier to put pressure on the municipality to take action against the neighbour. After all, the environmental officer is obliged to investigate the complaint and the petition should therefore contribute to the municipality’s investigation.

If this fails, you can bring your own private nuisance claim against your neighbour by way of an injunction and damages. Judges have the power to order that the nuisance be reduced and to pay damages. Failure to reduce the nuisance is a criminal offence.

Andreas Whitehead, a partner at law firm Stephensons, said: If dogs bark excessively, it is always wise to talk to the neighbors first to see if the problem can be resolved.

If that doesn’t work, you can contact your local authority. Although this doesn’t always lead to a successful outcome, it’s always worth trying these options.

The alternative is to start legal proceedings yourself, but such proceedings can be expensive, so you should rather resolve the matter outside of court.

Proving noise pollution claims is often difficult, especially because noise is subjective.

What one person considers excessive noise may be perfectly acceptable to another.

The law can help if the noise level constitutes a legal nuisance. To prove the claim, independent evidence of the type, volume and frequency of the noise is required in most cases.

Local governments may be able to help by installing sound recording equipment to capture different types of sound.

Although local authorities may not be able to take action unless the nuisance is harmful to health, the recordings can be used to assess a potential private nuisance claim.

It is advisable to keep a diary of the dates and times the sound was heard and what type of sound was heard.

You must demonstrate that the noise the dog makes is unreasonable and exceeds the volume or frequency of noise that you would expect, given the nature of the neighborhood in which the property is located.

What may cause noise pollution in rural areas may not cause noise pollution in a residential street in a city.

Many neighborhood disputes arise simply from a lack of communication or from someone not realizing there is a problem or not knowing the extent of it.

Mediation may also be worthwhile because it can initiate a conversation between the parties with the help of an independent third party.