Help with barking dog urgently needed!

justme

I am the proud owner of two gorgeous puppies. Jasper our pure breed cocker spaniel is 9 months old. Myles is our rescued lab, who we think he is about 12-18 months old. We found Myles wandering lost in our area on Christmas day without a collar. After weeks of trying to find the owner we decided we would keep him.

Both dogs were left outside during the day while I was at work and let in the house at night. However it was brought to our attention that the dogs were annoying the neighbours by barking during the day. Thinking it was being locked out side was the problem we have now kept them inside while at work. We have again had a note in the door telling us to keep the dogs quiet!! This is very upsetting for us. We love both dogs more than anything, bring them for walks, make sure they have enough chew toys to stock our own pet shop and always have plenty of food and water available to them. They don’t bark during the night and are very quite most of the time. They do sometimes bark outside but are quickly silenced by us.

Not sure what to do…..don’t want to loose our dogs or be brought to court over this. Any advise????????

hadook

I'd assume you're living in either a semi-d or a terrace house then? Because otherwise your neighbours wouldn't be able to hear your dogs barking indoors at all.

Check with the neighbours either side, see what times they say the dogs are barking. Make sure to mention that you started keeping your dogs inside when you got the first note, thinking this would help and that you're concerned that your dogs are still upsetting the neighbours and want to find out more so you can fix the problem. Be friendly, concerned etc.

If they are hearing your dogs you may need to consider getting in a dog walker during the day to break up your dogs routine or you may find that your dogs bark at the postman or another set routine event.

Or you might find that your neighbours say that they don't hear *your* dogs barking since you starting keeping them in the house but they've heard the dogs in number blah just down the road going mental and then you have your answer.

It might be worth setting up a tape recorder or webcam in the house while you're out to see what they're up to too. I did it with mine and discovered they sleep right up til about 25 mins before I'm due home.

stevoman

argos have bark control collars and maybe you should give them a chance. i myself have a barker at home but thankfully i have understading neighbours. the collar in argos is not eletric, but everytime the dog barks it will spray lemon up thier nose and dter them from barking. its about €60. worth a try IMO

carwash_2006

I would find out if your dogs are actually doing much barking before doing anything to stop them. Bark control collars of any kind will not work for long if there is a real reason why a dog is barking.

With your dogs now in the house I would say there is a strong chance that your dogs are being blamed for other dogs barking. Or maybe someone is just putting notes through doors of every house with dogs.