I used to work in dog rescue. At one point I asked a shelter worker what their thoughts were on shock collars to control dog barking. They told me that they would much rather that people used those than that the animals ended up surrendered or seized for noise or nuisance problems.
I ended up talking to a dog trainer and using shock collars when dog barking was undesirable on a series of my dogs over the last several years. The brand he recommended, and that I have used with good results is: Bark Delimiter
A couple streets away there is a house with a dog that barks what must be a total of hours every single day. The thing is, a sidewalk runs along the front of their yard, and that street is a popular route to reach a public bike/nature trail access point.
“Possible trespassers” aka walkers/bikers/skateboarders/rollerbladers use the sidewalk multiple times each fair weather daylight hour, and each case requires a constant stream of barking from the instant the ‘trespasser’ rounds the corner into the dog’s line of sight until they pass maybe two houses further along – call it around four minutes for people just out for a stroll. It’s especially bad outside of school hours.
I know one of their neighbors. He’s muttering about hiring a dognapper.
I think it’s very likely that if this comes to a hearing the neighbor will have time stamped audio/video of what the dog is doing as this is trivially easy to record with a smartphone video/audio camera.
I’m not a dog maven but it does seems that people often become inured to the barking of their dogs even though it’s driving other people crazy nuts. That you are even considering the plan of asking this person who came to your house to drive 50 miles to defend the timeline of your barking puppy is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. If a dog is barking “continuously” for 10-15 minutes , forget the law, that’s just unacceptable behavior in an urban/suburban environment. No neighbor should have to deal with dog going at it that long during the day.
You need to address the barking ASAP not figure out ways to defend the dog’s behavior.
Possibly you could try Citronella spray. It is a scent that dogs are unfamiliar with, and they do not bark when they smell it. It works like a charm for my dog, who barks a lot. The dog collars release Citronella when the dog starts to bark.
So your dog pissed on someone and then yapped at her for a quarter of an hour and you’re planning on asking her to be a character witness for its good behaviour? I admire your optimism.
I can’t believe the entitlement of the consensus in this thread. Regardless of whatever the law may be, dogs bark occasionally. As long as it’s not constantly for hours per day, get over it and quit your moaning. I’m with TriPolar on this one.
He rule of law is based on the rights that a person has in his home, including the right to be free of nuisances from his neighbor. This is not a new thing. There is a reason that nuisance barking is enumerated in your municipal code; people everywhere have already determined that it is unacceptable. It is not entitlement attitude. It’s just reality.
I’m late to this party but I want to say - if I bought a puppy and he arrived with both pneumonia and distemper, I would be incandescent with fury. You should talk to your breeder and make sure she knows about the distemper. You might want to talk to your health authorities on it, too. You might also consider talking to the breeder about your vet bills.
Oliver will probably settle down some, now that he’s neutered and feeling healthier. Hopefully, some puppy training will help get him on the right track.
I can’t believe the entitlement expressed in your post. How about I get some big speakers and blast whatever kind of music you hate the most at your house, at 100+ decibels? Of course, not constantly for hours per day, but enough to keep you from concentrating on your work, enjoying TV or radio, or maybe even a romantic moment with your SO. And, of course, sleeping. One yelp every ten minutes or so is more than enough to keep a mild insomniac awake for hours.
More generally, I hope there’s a special place in hell for the people who let their dogs out at 6AM or so. They’re up, so they figure why not wake up the rest of the neighborhood?
Still, they’re better than the people who just chain dogs up in the back yard and only see them when they feed them, and ignore their barking all day long.
Aside from all the other stuff, I had occasion to train a young dog out of puppy biting which worked very well, very quickly. You might give it a try, it’s pretty non-invasive.
Anytime he gets too rough with the teeth, give a sharp YIPE! AKA your best yelping impression of a litter-mate in pain - most young dogs will stop biting immediately and look quizzically at you…OMG I didn’t mean to hurt you! Only took a few tries with the pup I was re-training. Good luck.
The back and forth about decibels and time is legalistic ‘piddling’ IMO. If a dog barks more or less ‘full throttle’ for 10 or 15 minutes (by its owners’ estimate) and assuming fairly close houses and modern thin walls, that’s a nuisance. And in today’s world I don’t think you can blame people for avoiding possible confrontations by directing complaints directly to the authorities. There’s a lot of angry people around and the neighbors might not know the Kaylas aren’t among them. You might be grateful to neighbors if they show more forbearance than that, but you can’t blame them if they don’t IMO.
I love dogs, though not one of those self proclaimed dog experts to tell you how easy it is to get them not to bark. It’s just my opinion thinking of it from neighbor’s POV too as opposed to F Lee Bailey defense lawyering what’s the reasonable doubt in their case.
Our last dog was somewhat of a barker but not for that long, and the walls are really thick here. There’s a real yapper next door now and we barely hear it, doesn’t bother our current dog, who will sometimes bark at other dogs. But she’s practically mute otherwise. Sometimes we don’t hear her voice for weeks at a time. She came that way as a young adult from the shelter, first one also came post-puppy. Our training efforts never really changed either one’s behavioral flaws (the current one is hyper aggressive to other dogs though otherwise perfectly behaved; the first one had various issues though a good guy overall).
