Neighbor banging on my wall for dog barking

[casper26]

Dear fellow members,

I have been living at my current home for nearly 8 years, but my relationship with the neighbor is not perfect. She complained to me for various reasons by letter a couple of times over the years. If I know something annoys her, I would just avoid them. We seldom talk but a "hi, bye" conversation if we meet. I adopted a rehome Jack Russell 2 years ago.

She has 5 dogs, from Shih Tzu to Greyhound. My Jack Russell didn't like them, they didn't like my Jack Russell either. Her dogs are quiet most of the time, but bark sometimes too. Her dogs like to bark when they first wake up in the morning and my neighbor is an early riser at 5-6am. For the last 8 years, I never complained though.

My neighbor's complaint:
a) She sometimes likes to sit in her garden. My dog senses someone outside and would run out to check and bark for a few minutes and come back to me again. She would get annoyed and bang the fence and shout "Fxxking quiet!!". My dog would get scared and run back to me aggrievedly.
b) When I take my dog for a walk, my dog gets very excited and barks non stop. But this is only for a few minutes where I put up my jacket and my dog harness. My neighbor again would bang on the wall to warn me. During summer, I typically take my dog for walks from 8pm-9pm.

I always try to be understanding and avoid unnecessary fights with my neighbor but I think my neighbor might have been excessive lately, considering she has dogs and makes noise too. In my opinion, between 9am-9pm, occasionally a dog barking for less than 5 minutes is ok.

Could you let me know your thoughts please?

Please allow me to end this post with my angel's photos, hope it cheer you up also

 

[JudyN]

What a lovely girl - I do like JRTs.

It does sound like your neighbour is being unreasonable, though it would make sense to try to reduce your dog's barking as much as possible, just to avoid any aggro. What I would do first, though, is to keep records of exactly when and for how long her dogs bark, and when and for how long your dog barks. You might find that yours is actually barking more and for longer than you think, but also, if your neighbour did ever report you, you would be able to give the exact facts about what is happening. You would also be on firmer ground if you did explain to her that just as hers are liable to bark at specific times, so is yours.

But management or behavioural training (teaching your dog to be quiet on command, or calm before walks) is by far the 'safest' option, because unpleasant neighbours are rarely 'fixable'.