As a neighbor your only desire is to have other neighbors that share your same wants for the neighborhood. Pride in ownership can help a neighborhood increase in value, and it would only seem like a shared responsibility of a neighborhood to value their own property enough as an example to other neighbors that they want the same. For the most part, I am happy with my neighbors, I love waiving to them and walking out on an afternoon to have small talk with my neighbors about our lawns and how beautiful the day turned out.
But all it takes is one neighbor to ruin a neighborhood. I started this blog primarily because of my neighbors barking dog. The dog is a bonnified nuisance, and we have the documentation to prove it. My wife and I have logged as many times as we are home for times that the neighbors dog has been barking non-stop, or for durations. Sometimes for over an hour with only brief pauses. We can look over into our neighbors yard and see that the dog is begging to go in. Their sliding glass door is covered in dog prints from the Lab trying to get anyones attention. The poor dog aimlessly paces with no one giving the dog any attention. I'm not even sure if the dog gets properly walked.
For the most part, my wife and I had a great afternoon after I came home from work. I love to see my family, and when my wife is happy, I'm happy. But about 845pm tonight the neighbors dog started barking. While I type, the dog is still barking every minute to 5 minutes.
Our log of the nuisance barking is from beginning of May to mid August. We are without our Dog Silencer Pro. Our replacement has shipped, and we are hoping to get it any day now. Even if the device doesn't work, we like to know that something is "yelling" back at the dog. We have made up to 3 calls to animal control and myself 2 emails. These are informal complaints, but they do tell us that they send someone out whenever a complaint is made, formal or informal. They also remind us the proper channels to filing a complaint, which we have been putting off for a very long time, in hopes that the dog would either stop, the owners would come to their senses, or the dog leaves (the owner advised me the dog is there only temporarily....hasn't been so temporary though). I love my wife very much, and It PAINS me to see her so upset. I'm just as upset, but I try to hide my emotions to try and calm my wife down. Even though inside I just want to yell at the dog to just "Shut Up!!!". We have a 17 month old, and with the dog barking tonight we had a difficult time getting him to go to sleep.
So back to Animal Control. We have finally decided to submit the proper paperwork to Animal Control for our formal complaint. Though we struggled with the decision to formally complain, we felt for our own sanity, it was the only legal option. My wife and I are curious of what will actually happen. The owners back yard is a wreck. It is filled with abandoned "things" and some of the trash is spilling under the fence into our yard. I hope that Animal Control sees that this is no place for a LARGE Golden Lab to be living. There is no room for the dog to run, only plenty of stuff in its way.
I hope for a amicable solution, where the owner realizes that the dog has caused a problem. If their yard is addressed also, that would just be a bonus.
Anyone reading this know, you are not alone if you are dealing with a problem neighbor and nuisance dog or noise. Of course you probably already know that from googling all the horror stories. What I hope to accomplish one day, is make it easier and more effective to report and handle nuisance dogs. Some people should not legally be aloud to have a dog. They are a big responsibility, and to often than not, most people do not have the time or energy to put into keeping or raising a dog.
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