In the garden that backs onto mine, there’s a dog that barks for hours every day.
The owner lets it out at mealtimes, so it’s about 8am in the morning for an hour, lunchtime for a couple of hours, between 4pm to 6pm and often later. Sometimes it’s out there for five hours barking non-stop with the owner saying ‘Shh’ repeatedly from indoors.
I have tried shouting out but nothing happens. I have contacted the council who told me to make 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 as I got a message back: ‘No case to answer’.
Barking hell: A This is Money reader has a noisy barking dog living nearby
I went around to the neighbour in question three months ago and she said no one’s ever complained about the dog barking before and that I was nasty.
I’ve been knocking on people’s doors and lots of neighbours told me the dog barking bothers them, but said they didn’t want to cause a fuss or confrontation.
I went back the other day and said I was sick of it. I said I’d start a petition to get her to stop leaving the dog in the garden to bark non-stop.
I have lived in this house for six years and it has bothered me from day one. Apart from moving, what else can I do?
Jane Denton of This is Money replies: Even the most ardent of animal lovers can’t fail to find continuous barking from a nearby dog, however cute, frustrating.
I’m a dog lover, but am often left wondering why some people bother to have a dog if all they plan to do is shove it outside for hours on end.
A dog near me is often barking late into the night, from 11pm onwards, and it certainly doesn’t sound content, particularly during the winter months.
You have tried and failed to get this matter resolved via your neighbour and the council. The local council investigator you spoke to sounds useless and needs to revisit their job description.
It is significant that you have other neighbours who feel the same as you about the excessive barking. You should not feel you have no option other than move house.
I thought it would be a good idea to get some advice for a dog behaviourist before delving into suggestions from legal experts.
Expert: Aftab Ahmed is the owner of The Dog Ami, a dog training business based in Surrey which operates across England
Aftab Ahmed, owner of The Dog Ami reward-based trainer and behaviourist business, said: While barking is a natural behaviour, and discouraging a dog from expressing and sharing his feelings would be disempowering, many a neighbourly dispute has started because of a yappy dog and, sadly, many a dog has been handed into a rescue shelter because of incessant barking.
There are many reasons dogs bark excessively. It could be due to separation-related disorders, medical reasons, being alarmed or fearful, guarding of territory or people or as a form of attention seeking if barking has been previously rewarded.
People attempt to stop barking using various methods, including, for example, spraying the dog with water or shouting, or the use of various ‘stop barking’ products.
The majority of these methods fail for one reason. They do not address the initial motivation for the barking.
If the dog is barking due to separation anxiety or medical reasons, it may be that the dog hates being alone outdoors without his owner. The only way to resolve barking due to separation anxiety is to resolve the anxiety. Medication or complementary therapies can help.
If the dog’s compulsive barking is due to medical reasons, a veterinarian will need to be involved to identify and resolve the root cause, often with the help of medication.
If the dog is ‘fear barking’, your neighbour would need to deal with the stimulus causing the fear leading to the barking.
As mentioned, territorial barking could be an issue. If the dog is barking whenever he feels someone or an animal come into the garden, he is often motivated by fear. De-sensitisation and counter-conditioning can be useful. In addition, teaching the dog to be quiet and then rewarding him when he stops barking is a good strategy for controlling excessive barking.
If your neighbour’s dog is attention seeking, ignoring unwanted barking that has been previously rewarded and rewarding alternative behaviours, such as not barking, sitting or going to his bed, should soon reduce or eliminate excessive barking. For optimum results on rewarding alternative behaviours, the dog should be rewarded once quiet or displaying the alternative behaviour for four seconds or so.
It is important, however, for your neighbour to first rule out barking due to boredom or loneliness. Dogs need their physical, emotional and cognitive and environmental enrichment needs met.
It is best to use a qualified dog behaviourist with experience for these sorts of issues.
In this case, the dog’s owner may not be aware the barking affects anyone other than you. A non-confrontational set of signatures from affected neighbours stating that the noise is inconvenient may be the impetus for the dog owner and council to take the matter seriously.
You could buy a cheap net fence for the dog owner to erect two or three metres away from the back of the garden boundary. This can act as a buffer to the source of a dog’s anxiety – often something in the adjoining garden.
Alternatively, you and your neighbours could club together and offer to contribute to instructing a dog behaviourist.
While not ideal, you could also use ear plugs or close your windows for parts of the day affected by barking. You could use music or a TV in a room away from the garden to dull the barking noise. Again, this isn’t the ideal solution.
You could even buy some dog-appeasing pheromones as a present for the dog owner. The use of these products can be useful in managing anxiety disorders.
No-nonsense: Bahareh Amani has solid advice for barking-related woes
Bahareh Amani, a partner at Hodge Jones and Allen law firm, said: Your first course of action should be to speak to your neighbour, as dog owners are not always aware of how loud their dog is.
However, it seems as though you have undertaken this step to no avail.
Once you have the petition from the neighbours, you can again approach your neighbour to advise them that there are in fact more neighbours that are affected by their dog and they may accept your position and work with you to try and minimise the dog’s impact.
It is very important to try to avoid being confrontational and communicating in an amicable and conciliatory manner. You should establish whether your neighbour is a tenant or the homeowner. If they are a tenant, you could approach the landlord directly and ask them to speak to their tenant about their dog.
If this does not work, you should review the title deeds to your property, as well as that of your neighbour.
The council has a duty to investigate and take action if the barking is found to be a statutory noise nuisance
These are available from the Land Registry and the title deeds may contain covenants with respect to the use of the properties. If they do, there may be a covenant that the occupier does not cause nuisance or annoyance. If such covenants do exist, you could seek to enforce them against your neighbour.
Alternatively, you have other options available to you, given that it seems that you are alleging the dog’s barking to be a noise nuisance.
The council has a duty to investigate and take action if the noise is found to be a statutory noise nuisance in accordance with the Environmental Protection Act 1980.
It is often easier to keep applying pressure to the council so that they take action against the neighbour, as the environmental officer is required to investigate the complaint and so the petition should assist with the council’s investigation.
If this fails, then you are able to bring your own private nuisance claim in against your neighbour by way of an injunction and compensation. Judges have the power to order that the nuisance is abated and to pay compensation. If the nuisance is not abated, this is a criminal offence.
In the know: Andrew Whitehead is a partner at Stephensons law firm
Andrew Whitehead, a partner at Stephensons law firm, said: In cases involving excessive barking from dogs, it is always worth trying to speak to the neighbour directly in the first instance to see if the issue can be resolved.
Failing that, you can contact your local authority. Whilst that does not always lead to a successful outcome, it is always worth exhausting these options.
The alternative is to pursue legal proceedings yourself, but litigation can be expensive therefore resolving this issue outside of the courts should be your priority.
Noise nuisance claims can often be difficult to prove, largely because noise is subjective.
What one person may consider to be excessive noise might be perfectly acceptable to someone else.
The law can assist if the level of noise amounts to a legal nuisance. To prove the claim, in most cases, independent evidence of the type, volume and frequency of the noise is required.
Local authorities may be able to assist by installing noise recording equipment to capture the types of noise.
While local authorities may not be able to take action themselves unless the nuisance is prejudicial to health, the recordings could still be used to assess a potential private nuisance claim.
It is advisable to keep diary logs of the dates and times of the noise, and what sort of noise is heard.
You would have to prove that the noise being created by the dog was unreasonable and goes beyond the volume or frequency of noise to be expected, given the character of the neighbourhood where the property is.
What might be a noise nuisance in rural areas may not be on a residential street in a town.
Many neighbour disputes arise simply from a lack of communication or someone not realising there is an issue or the full extent of an issue.
Mediation is also a worthwhile consideration as it can prompt discussion between parties with the assistance of an independent third party.
