Geesh! If these were my dogs they would be loving the hell out of my mean ol’ neighbor. My dogs love to play in the water.
Well, yes you did. Both of you.
Seriously Johnny, jump off the ride before it goes haywire. You don’t want this to become known as the Johnny L.A. Meltdown Thread, now, do you?
RedBill
Redboss: No, I didn’t shoot at a dog. In one case I shot into a yard where a dog was, with absolutely no intention of hitting the dog; and in the other case I only made a noise and did not shoot anything.
But you are right about jumping off the ride. On the list of important things in life, this issue doesn’t even register. I’m done with it.
(But as for the OP, I like the idea of squirting the woman back and claiming that she was going to bark.)
JohnnyL.A.
FTR some mean neighbors of mine killed my cat with a BB gun, when I was a child.
At a much closer range than your firing but all the same a BB gun can actually kill a small animal.
Back to the OP.
If your neighbor refuses to talk to you in an adult fashion call the cops on her. If you dogs are not doing this at all hours of the night but only during the day than she has no reason to attack the dogs (yes I used the word attack) or to tresspass on your property (yes I said tresspass, check your local ordinaces YMMV).
Just because your neighbor is annoyed by your dog’s barking does not give her the right to squirt them with a hose. And just because your dogs are in their own yard doing what dogs do does not mean that your neighbor should have to listen to them bark if it annoys her.
Initially your dogs were barking in response to a noise on the other side of the fence, a possible threat. They would likely have barked once or twice and went on.
But now it has either become a battle for territory or maybe a game. Whatever, they have learned that there is something on the other side of the fence that is a threat and they are going to keep going over there and barking at it.
At any rate, handy offered the most wisdom with the fewest words. “what you need is a solid fence”
I am not going to offer any suggestions on what to do about a degenerating thread. It is best to leave that question up to the experts, assuming there are any. I say let it go.
I had to deal with this for the last few years too. We got a letter from the EPA. I called and explained to them times/how often the dog is out, how we pulled him back inside when he barked, etc. EPA says the laws (in our area) are really there for people who leave their dogs out all night barking and not for what my situation is. We recieved threatening and badly spelled (unsigned of course) letters which I filed with the police after I received a threatening anonymous phone call. Somewhere in the middle of the a few ‘well-written letters’ he had to be brought to the vet for being poisoned. (He’s OK now, thanks). We received another letter from the EPA. Same deal there. One of our neightbors moved and all activity suddenly stopped, with much less barking to boot. No new complaints from the new neighbors in the past year either.
If you ignore a dog instead of baiting him/yelling at him from your side of the fence/spraying him with water, or god forbid become his friend, he’ll shut the hell up and leave you alone, may even welcome you when you come out of the house with a friendly face instead of lunging at you.
I would defintely encourage the fence idea. It isn’t worth fighting with neighbors over, someone usually ends up doing something stupid.
Our neighbors harassed our dogs simply because they were pitbulls and our neighbors were afraid of them. They were sweet dogs, good with children, etc., but you couldn’t convince the neighbors of that. They would actually throw rocks at them over the short fence that separated the two yards. Naturally, the dogs’ good nature could only stand so much of that and they started barking and lunging at the fence when the neighbor(s) came into view.
Rather than escalate the situation, we put up a six-foot wooden fence completely around our yard. Problem solved. Expensive but effective, and as much as we loved our dogs, it was worth it.
I’m wondering if the six-foot wooden fence we just put up (to keep in Ms. Dig and Climb and her little buddy) isn’t making my dogs bark more. Now that they can’t see if it’s the neighbor or someone coming to steal our trash they bark at every sign of movement outside the fence. Thank goodness I have the greatest neighbors in the world and no one has ever complained.
I have read to train your dog(s) to stop barking, you should, when they start barking, go outside and rattle a can of pennies. The noise is supposed to distract them and make them forget about barking. When they stop barking after you’ve shaken the can, you tell them how good they are. Of course, most of us aren’t home all day to run out and shake a can, but this method is supposed to work. Maybe you could explain this to the neighbor lady and ask her to shake a can (that you give her) instead of squirting your dogs or at least not squirt them because she’s not giving you time to stick your head out and shake the can. If she understands you’re trying to work on the problem maybe she’ll cooperate.