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Advice For My Sister - Issue With Neighbour


Trisven13
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My sister has two dogs. From my visits at her house (5 days at a time normally) I can say with great assurance that her dogs don't bark anymore than anyone else's in the neighbourhood and don't bark excessively whilst people are at home. I don't know what they do whilst she is out. She has a neighbour at the back who has made multiple complaints and abuses her over the fence. A lot of the time when the dogs are barking they are barking at a cat from another neighbour that wanders into the property. Council have said that the cat is allowed to wander and she should lock her dogs up to prevent them barking at the cat - is this correct?

I've recommended that she look at debarking but I'm not sure how keen she is. She also is adverse to locking them up whilst they're out but she may need to do that IMO and board them whilst they are on holidays rather than getting pet carers in.

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I didn't think cats were allowed to wander? I thought they had to be on their own property?

I also thought this was right, even in NSW. These days people just seem to love to make other people's lives a misery.

If they complain to council they have to make a diary. A friend of mine is experiencing this and her dogs weren't even there one day the neighbour said they were barking, the council is aware that some of it could be malicious or perhaps it is a neighbour's dog but my friend is blamed because she has more than one. Sadly she has to lock her dogs inside now when she leaves the property because there have been too many complaints and she can't take any chances.

Effectively it stops dogs from being dogs, I understand when the dog is being a nuisance with constant barking but when it is protecting its property with occasional barks or playing for instance, there is no allowance for that.

An old neighbour of mine said even one dog bark annoyed her immensely. As dog owners these days, you are really up against it with attitudes like that.

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An old neighbour of mine said even one dog bark annoyed her immensely. As dog owners these days, you are really up against it with attitudes like that.

WOW, I'll bet she was fun to live with :eek:

Trish, the neighbour may be being just vexatious, but you won't know until you know what happens when the dogs are left alone.

I remember a long long time ago, a DOLer was told that her dogs were being really really noisy during the day and didn't believe it . . . . . . until she was shown a video :laugh: .

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What a load of cr*p. I'm so sick of people's cats going wherever they like. So the dogs can't even enjoy their own backyard?! How ridiculous.

Yeah and the same cat owners say ''Oh but our cat/s never wanders far from our property' yeah right ! :mad

Edited by Jules♥Cavs
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What a load of cr*p. I'm so sick of people's cats going wherever they like. So the dogs can't even enjoy their own backyard?! How ridiculous.

Yeah and the same cat owners say ''Oh but our cat/s never wanders far from our property' yeah right ! :mad

I know. Does my head in. Imagine their reaction if they were told to keep their cats inside because our dogs were in their yard.

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I saw this device recently on deals direct (for indoors i think) that supposed to help keep noisy dogs quiet. I had thought about getting one as we keep ours inside if we are out, but our fibro house walls are quite thin! and you can hear them yapping from inside if they start up. Our neigibours would come to us first if there was any issues. The device has mixed reviews tho to the effectiveness of it..

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[quote name='Aussie3' timestamp='1357864035' post='6083338'

I know. Does my head in. Imagine their reaction if they were told to keep their cats inside because our dogs were in their yard.

yeah i know *sigh*

We do the responsible thing and keep ours cats indoors or in a cat run ..

I must admit birds (especially magpies!) in our backyard will set Joey off if he sees them from behind the sliding door curtains :o

Edited by Jules♥Cavs
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Debarking requires a lot of work to be done before the proceedure. I've looked into it for a chronic barker I have.

Firstly a nuisance order must be placed on the dog.

Secondly all other avenues (behaviourists, bark collars etc) must be tried and proof of this given to council

Then a stat dec must be filled in stating all the above has been tried and failed, then they may ask you to try other things first, then they may give you the paperwork that the vet will ask for to have it done.

I then rang around looking at prices, SASH quoted upwards of $5000, another vet quoted $1000~. I still had to have all the above done first though :(

I've given up now, we've had behaviourists, we've done the collars etc and I still can't get council to place the nuisance order on her!

Good luck with it :)

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Has she tried any of the anti-bark collars? ... we brought the Tri Tronics G3 Bark Limiter from K9Pro and it worked very well for our older boy. It has the added advantage of being able to indicate how many corrections have been given so you can record this to show if the collar is working or not.

The citronella collars aren't were not effective for my boys because the smell lingers ... so the correction is not over immediately ... and my boys don't mind the smell of citronella.

Edited by Tilly
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My suggestion for your sister is to set cat traps on her property and dispose of the offending cats. Cats are not allowed to wander onto the proprty of others and cause a nuisance.

In the mean time she needs to keep a diary of the dogs barking and what they bark at. Take pics of the cats in her yard etc. If council press on with a nuisance dog order she can fight it based on her evidence.

We've trapped every roaming cat that has come onto our proprty and caused an issue in the last 8 years. We haven't had to worry about them setting off the dogs for a good 18 months now and it's back to being peacefull

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Yep I agree Pav Lova - have also recommended she attempt mediation (which we don't think the neighbour will agree to) but at least then she can show the Council that she has made an effort. She has been keeping a diary of incidents for 18 months AND has kept a barking diary for a few days each month for that long. I kept a barking diary whilst staying at her house for 5 days more than 12 months ago and they barely barked at all. I made far more notes of other dogs in the area barking.

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The easiest solution is to keep the dogs inside while she's not home. This is the safest option if neighbours are complaining, as they might throw bait over the fence, steal them or let them out.

It's not cruel to keep dogs inside during the day. This is commonly done in Europe and in countries where it's too cold for a dog to live outside. My dogs are kept inside when we're out as well, as they will fence fight with the neighbours' dogs. And also I know they're safe. I know if they do bark no one will hear them, no one can bait them and they won't accidentally get out.

Such an easy solution that fixes so many things.

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Yep I agree Pav Lova - have also recommended she attempt mediation (which we don't think the neighbour will agree to) but at least then she can show the Council that she has made an effort. She has been keeping a diary of incidents for 18 months AND has kept a barking diary for a few days each month for that long. I kept a barking diary whilst staying at her house for 5 days more than 12 months ago and they barely barked at all. I made far more notes of other dogs in the area barking.

she should have no problems then.

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What a load of cr*p. I'm so sick of people's cats going wherever they like. So the dogs can't even enjoy their own backyard?! How ridiculous.

Exactly, yet us dog owners have to be responsible to make sure our dogs aren't a nuisance, shame the same law doesn't apply to cats owners.

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Set up a video camera and record during the day just to see what really goes on. We were told that our dog w 'barking all day'. Turns out she play wit her food ball then lie in the sun. Then the shadow would move and she'd move into the sun and then the birds would walk right up to the sleeping dog looking for food she'd missed. Dog would wake up chase bird woof once whe they flew onto the fence then go back to sleeping. 3 or 4 times at most per day thid would happen. It was rivetting viewing 8 hours in fast forward each day. Council rang again we told them what had been on the videos and that they were free to view them themselves and we never heard from them again. The only weird thing was the day she ran around the yard about 30 minutes before we were due home dug a hole and stuck a tennis ball in it and left it there.

So anyone ever has the 'barkig dog complaint' would suggest set up a camera yourself and see what the dog is actually doing (and if they are barking see what is triggering it).

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