About noisy dogs
No, I don't know what you should do. I'm thinking that a bark collar would be a good start.
No, I don't think that's too cruel. I think it's cruel to keep all your neighbors up who don't happen to have triple-paned windows, Energy Star Houses, and Gregorian Monks chanting out of Bose speakers around the bed, to drown out the noise of your damned yippie hound.
Yes, I'm going to give you a citation for noise if I have to come back.
Yes, I recognize that you think it's unfair.
Yes, I know that dogs bark. Yours certainly makes that clear.
Yes, I can give you the name of my chief.
No, I would not recommend calling him right now.
Yes, I'm serious.
No, I won't tell you who called on you about your yippie dog. It frankly could have been any of two dozen houses, given the volume and frequency. Did you, by the way, have your dog surgically altered to bark at that pitch and loudness for that kind of duration? No? Specially bred that way, maybe? No? Well, then, you're just lucky, now, aren't you?
No ma'am, I don't guess I would call in to complain on you night and day, like your neighbor seems to do.
Thank you.
No, ma'am, it's not that I "appreciate dogs" any more than he does, it's that I have my own manner of dealing with such problems.
Good night.
_ _ _
Hello? Mr. Neighbor? Yes. I spoke to her.
Yes, I understand.
Well, if it's still barking in an hour, call me back, and I'll write her a ticket.
Uh huh, I know. The citation doesn't really help you get any sleep, does it?
On an unrelated note, did you notice that Sportsman's Ghetto Warehouse has Marlin .22 rifles on sale for $99?
And that Aguila makes a 60 grain subsonic load for .22 LR?
And Home Despot has fiberglass-handled shovels on sale for $17.
Huh? Oh, just thinking out loud.
G'night...
+ + +
All but the last five lines are my half of a call for service that we seem to get time and time and time again.
Here's Crystal's view of it, when it's her own damned dog.
Labels: day at the office, life interfering with fun, minor suggestion, Pets
posted by Matt G @ 1:35 PM
19 Comments:
Could you please come to my neighborhood? Pretty please?
The sheriff that we called the ONE time, walked through my back yard to confront my dog barking neighbors. Yeah, really great neighborhood relations.
Now I have resorted to actually calling them to tell them their dog is barking. Apparently they are deaf.
A no-bark collar is indeed a Godsend. You can get one rather cheaply, and they even come in Watchdog models, that allow a dog to bark for a set time and volume before they start giving any stimulus.
I trained retrievers professionally for fifteen years, and I never had to use a barking collar. I could have fifteen dogs raising hell at something, and I could step outside the door, bellow "QUIET!" and get instant silence, at least for a few minutes. The problem barkers were dealt with individually.
Lots of dogs find barking self-rewarding. Lots of dogs are bored out of their little canine skulls because their owners never ask anything of them or devote more than a few nanoseconds to serious consideration of the dog's needs and behavior.
My mother has a yappy little dog. She hates her neighbor too. She is also half-deaf to begin with- I agree with the neighbor, except for the part about poisoning the dog if it doesn't get regularly brought in and quieted. If she'd crate-train him he'd be quieter AND housebroken- wouldn't THAT be a treat...
No-bark collars are misused a LOT, but they're better than flat, dumb, "I can't do anything, dogs just bark."
A better training method than no-bark collars are training shock-collars. Dark barks? Push the button to warn with a beep. Dark barks? Zap.
I'm generally against shock collars, because they're entirely too easy to abuse, but I have known dogs who simply would not stay in the yard without the underground fence, so I know that they're necessary at times.
My personal reason for distaste is a Jack Russel Terrier that we found in our yard years back. Someone had dumped her, she was terrified of men, and terrified in general. Anything that made a clicking sound sent her running all out into the next room.
She also had a bare patch of skin on her neck, which we at first thought was a scar from having her voice box removed, because for three weeks she didn't make any noise at all except for wheezing. When she finally barked (at someone coming in the door without knocking) we were all shocked.
After that, judging by the fear of clicky noises and the bare patch on her throat, we guessed that someone had used a shock collar on her so much that it inhibited the growth of hair there.
So, I prefer proper early training to trying to fix a problem that you let develop earlier, myself.
You get what you raise. Dogs WANT to do well. This behaviour reflects damned poorly on the owner. Frankly, don't shoot the poor wee beastie. Shoot the damn owner.
BTW--phenobarbial works on dogs, too. In hamburger.
The problem with the shock collars is that most people use them incorrectly- you have the right method, but most skip the part where they give a warning, verbal or with the little tone.
With no warning and no easy way to figure out how to do right, the dog winds up in a hell of apparently random shocks.
Confused, stressed dogs usually get barkier and more badly behaved in general... trainers see a lot of cases of the aftermath.
A former neighbor had a barking dog that they left tied up most of the day. The barking must have bothered them as well--They moved his chain to the far corner of their yard...Right under our bedroom window.
We've got incompetents who answer calls about dogs. There was a loose dog that most mornings would come and bark, a cross between challenging and skittish. We called to report him, only to find a note on OUR door warning us about our loose dog.
Uh, Matt, do you "do" cats?
How about ones that come from somewhere down the block and a street over just to sit in the bushes near my bird feeder? And yes, I've seen them running off with a catch.
If they'd just come at night so the neighbors couldn't see what I was doing...
Shock collars, like every other tool that I can think of right off-hand, can be misused, but aren't evil.
I don't put down cats, per se.
I put down feral nuisances, though.
Cats, at least, are usually quiet.
Neighbors on one side have about three dogs, including one very yippy one that apparently really dislikes being outside, because every time they put it out, it barks pretty much nonstop for hours on end.
Neighbors on the other side have pretty much abandoned their place, leaving behind at least one pit bull (and I think two) to "guard" it. No electricity, which probably prompts their near-constant barking some nights. I'm not sure whom to call, as we're outside city limits, so San Antonio's animal control has no use for us.
I will admit that I have been very tempted to buy a small shotgun and take some target practice, or have my husband display his prowess.
Bob - a little netting / wire fencing on the bird feeder side of the bushes will take care of the problem.
We had neighbor cats lurking under our deck, which just infuriated our indoor-only cats. Little bit of fencing so they can't make a dash and the problem was solved.
I like working with the way things want to work rather than against them. The racoons that come around our bird feeder have learned that anything on the ground is fair game but if they climb up to the feeder to help themselves I'll zap 'em with painfully bright light. Every year we go through a few training sessions for the young ones.
Sabra (BellaLinda)-- call the Bexar Co. Sheriff's Office-- they cover calls out of city limits. If the pits are abandoned, they'll work up a case against the owners for that. They can get 'em for the noise, too, but you're not guarenteed that they will; deputies as a rule hate writing tickets.
If the pits are a hazard... well...
I'm not giving advice here. I'm just thinking out loud. If I were concerned about the hazard, and I realized that the deputies probably weren't going to do anything useful but document my name for later, I might be tempted to dig a hole, and put the remains of the former hazard into it, and cover up the hole.
But I would never encourage anyone to do that.
("Are you calling me on a cell phone?!? Prank caller! Prank caller! [slam]")
I only have one suggestion- Silenced .22 pistol... Works wonders, no muss- no fuss...
And as a bonus, the neighbors generally get the idea pretty quickly.
I love my two labradors. They only bark if there is something to bark about. We have a widow neighbor lady through the back yard. They are way more protective of her than they are of us. You can come in our back yard (as long as you pet them) but don't go in hers!
Ear plugs at bedtime.
It's a more certain solution than calling non-responsive cops who don't want to write tickets for this kind of nonsense. And a lot less likely to land you in trouble than following the Three S rule.
In apartment management, I find that 75% of my non-maintenance issues relate to dogs, and more that 75% of that lot is related to barking dogs. People can never believe THEIR little sweetums is raising hell when they are gone.
I therefore found this a very satisfying post to read. People need to be more responsible about pets. Oh, and for the record, I have found the Citronella collar to be much more effective on silencing the persistent yappers.
Is your neighbor's dog barking too much? Add your dog to the barkingdogatlas.blogspot.com/
Bizarre. Cool, if it takes off.
But bizarre.
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