Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff...........

Just got a new neighbor with a dog and this is what I hear all day...nonstop. lab pup. Appears to be a nice quiet dog when not penned up. Luckily they bring it in at night and when they get home

I work nights so I am up all day and when my neighbor goes to work they lock the dog in a cage out back they just built. The dog doesn't like it and just barks continually at nothing. I finally moved out of the suburbs to a rural area where it is so quiet and peaceful (was). In every neighborhood I ever lived in at least one person in the neighborhood had such a dog. I was so glad to no longer have to deal with it. We all have 10-20 acres each surrounded by farms but sound travels.

Haven't met them yet but that is my next step. Introduce ourselves, welcome them and then work the dog into the conversation. Hope things work out ok, if not I will go crazy. Don't really want to make complaint and have lifelong battles with neighbor.

Oh, we also enjoyed the darkness away from all the lights...he put up a street light on pole to his house. What next?

Is this something everyone has to deal with or just me?

Sounds like a good plan.
It's not just you.
Regards, GF.

Poor thing. They should lock him in his kennel IN THE DAMN HOUSE!

Maybe they will do that after you get to know them. We went through this same thing ourselves. We had no idea that our fully grown dog would bark her head off when we went away overnight. She loved to be outside, so we kept her in a pen out back. Neighbors (who ironically owned a dog grooming business) came over one day asking if our dog was the the one THEIR neighbors complained about.

It's hard with a lab pup because he probably pees when he needs too, inside or not, and possibly chews stuff, including potentially the bedding in his kennel.

Yeah my pup does the same in her crate when i'm at work. She only barks when she can hear people. I remedied this by leaving her out of her crate during the day. I only did this AFTER I dog proofed the house.

That's a bummer about the light too. Nothing you can do about that, but you can definitely do something about the dog. Start with politely asking them to do something about it. If nothing changes, be a good neighbor and ask again. If THAT doesn't change anything, you can complain to the sheriff/police/authority for disturbing the peace or something like that. It would be considered a nuisance under the law so something can be done.

I STRONGLY suggest you go the neighborly route first. I know from experience that being friendly upfront can avoid any angry neighbor situations.

Try the neighbor thing first. It worked for me years ago when my wife, at the time, wanted me to call the cops when he was playing his guitar tooooo loud after 11pm keeping the 4 and 5 year old kids awake. He shut every thing down pronto admitting he had lost track of time. The music was always shut off or turned down by 8:30 after that plus he turned out to be a good neighbor and friend.

I went through the same thing last year. My neighbor has a dog that barks up a storm occasionally, but nothing major. Well, his friend got deployed to Afghanistan and asked him to watch his dog for him. Uggggh. That thing was possesed. When he let that thing outside it barked non stop at absolutely nothing. Then the other dog (which was usually pretty well behaved) would join in on the fun. I started to get a little pissed off until I found out what the deal was. It was driving my neighbor nuts too so he finally sent the dog to his sisters place out in the country. Ahh, peace and quiet again.

Record the dog barking.... let it record for a few hours. That way if they deny it "no, not our dog!" you have proof.

A lifetime ago when I was in my early 20s I had a roommate who had an annoying little yapper dog and she would let it bark outside for hours. The neighbors behind us complained, I complained but the roommate was a twit and just let her dog bark.

The neighbors behind us took her to court.... and they had an audio recording of more than 8 hours of that mutt barking. The judge fined my roommate something like $300 + court costs and told her if it continued he would take more drastic measures.

She was all pissed off when she came home..... I went in my room and laughed my a** off!

Well this weekend has been very quiet. Looks like they were away all weekend and even when they were home didn't even see the dog. But it was only last week he built the cage and put the dog in it during the weekdays so when I get home this morning I will see if this will be a weekday thing.

To me they are better off getting the dog trained. It really doesn't want to be caged up outside. It wants in, in the house.

It's a puppy. They miss their people. Give them a little time to get it worked out. If they are younger folks, they may not have any good ideas on how to keep him occupied during the day.

Every time they put the dog in the pen it gets out in about an hour then roams the neighborhood looking for someone to let it in the house. Seems like a well behaved dog otherwise. When they are home they usually don't pen the dog up and now that they know it will get out they don't put it in there much. When they do and the dog keeps barking they eventually let it out and it shuts up.

My concern now is they will pour a concrete pad.....I guess for now we will wait and see.

They have a garage, not sure why when they go to work just don't leave it in there if they don't want it in the house alone. I think they have done that before the pen was there and the dog was fairly quiet.

...turns out they keep the dog in the house now and only let it out when they are there and not in the pen. Pen hasn't been used since. So glad they figured out a barking dog all day is not the way to go, nice.

Our neighbors have a light on a pole in their backyard that they'll leave on until 9 or 10 pm. Our bedroom windows face their backyard so we would get the full blast of the light at night. We used to call it the Sun because it was so bright and they left it on all night. My wife went and talked to them and they've since put it on a timer. It goes on a 6 pm and goes off at 10 pm. You might want to talk to them and see if they would do something similar.

As for the dog, well can't help you there. There was a thread about handling annoying cats a couple weeks that might have some handy suggestions for you.

I wake up to stupid barking dogs every weekend. There's always this small pack of dogs barking up a storm right outside my window! Unfortunately, I have nobody to complain to. They're my wife's dogs!