Barking Dog - What is Too Early?
I have a neighbor whose dog barks non-stop (it’s a yapper) from 7 in the morning on. I nicely said something to her and was told “its after 7 am.” I told her this is what wakens us every morning. She told me too bad. Am I being unreasonable in asking someone to keep their…
I have a neighbor whose dog barks non-stop (it’s a yapper) from 7 in the morning on. I nicely said something to her and was told “its after 7 am.” I told her this is what wakens us every morning. She told me too bad. Am I being unreasonable in asking someone to keep their dog quiet for a little later?
jason
Just wanted to comment from a dog owner. Our 2-year old pup has separation anxiety…has had it since we adopted him at 8 weeks old. He has been on anti-anxiety medication, and we do daily training with him to desensitize our comings and goings…with no medication or training he would bark for upwards of 3 hours at a time, drool incessantly, and paw at the door to the point that the door gets damaged and his paws get bloodied. We rarely leave him alone for more then a few hours (if that)…most days he stays in daycare. We are calm people who have an otherwise perfectly trained pooch, except for this. We’ve been working on this issue with him for about 1.5 years and are finally making some good progress.
The reason this is relevant is that we had to deal with complaining neighbors in our last building. As soon as we found out his barking was bothering others, we immediately took action. The nuisance laws are fairly specific about dog barking. Between approximately 9am-8pm, dog barking is a nuisance if it’s continuous for 10 minutes or more (during off-hours it’s 5 minutes). There is a whole protocol for a landlord taking action on a barking dog complaint…they have to prove that it’s a problem under the nuisance laws and then give a warning that you have 10 days to remedy the problem, after which they can proceed to evict you. We ended up moving (they threatened us with eviction without giving any time to address the issue), and thankfully he is much better in our new place (and the building is more soundproof). Our neighbors say that they can’t hear a thing.
If the dog is barking because he needs to be taken out at 7am, it is the owner’s responsibility to do so! You are completely within your rights to let her know (our previous neighbors never spoke to us…they just went and informed the landlord). If the dog needs training or extra walks, it’s her responsibility to shoulder the costs. If she can’t or won’t address problem barking, she probably isn’t fit to keep the dog. I’m super sympathetic to others with ‘problem dogs’, but only if they’re willing to work to fix issues. I’d suggest speaking with her about it more, and if she doesn’t indicate that she will work to prevent his barking, contact your landlord.
“Acajou, shut it. The only one ‘heartless’ is the dog owner for not giving a damn about anyone else. And not taking proper care of their animal. Annonymous letter slipping is passive aggressive pansy ass bull crap!”
Here! Here! There is no excuse for this. I’ve owned dogs for years and sorry an animals potty needs don’t supersede my need to get some rest to deal with the world the next day. To the person who says the dog is just telling the owner that they need to get in after the morning potty break bullsh*t. I always stood there and waited for them to go nudging them with the command “potty”. They are lazy, period and don’t give a sh*t about the neighbors.
Dogs get there bad energy from their owners. I would stay away from those owners as they are surely out of balance and it has manifested in self in a high anxiety barker. Contact officials and let them handle it if the owners don’t want to be responsible pet owners then they shouldn’t have the dog. As much as the SPCA bamboozles people into taking rescues that haven’t been temperament tested or evaluated on any level this dog may be one of those.Too bad acupuncture for dogs is illegal in NYS.
Ok, it was worse then that. the woman is a cranky old person and she did not tell me too bad. She told me go to Hell. I know I can make her life miserable and I also know that dogs who are taken out for excersice don’t bark. I have a dog and he does not bark. we run him every day.
She came over and apologized today and I asked her if she could keep the dog in until 8 am and she said yes.
I want to work with her cause I do things wrong to and don’t want her dropping a dime on me.
thanks for the input.
jason
Page 7 of the NYC noise code covers animal noise:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/noise_code_guide.pdf
What it does not cover is how many minutes of silence is necessary before the clock starts ticking again. It is sort of vague at best.
Might I suggest poison … for the owner, that is 🙂
Seriously, one should not have to put up with an inconsiderate slob leaving his dogs outdoors to bark all day or even for long periods. Although I don’t much like it, I will put up with maybe 5 minutes of barking. After that, calls to 311, the ASPCA, landlord, whatever it takes. I have to admit that I’m not an animal lover and whatever happens to the animal would not concern me in the least. People in the city should only have pets if they are properly taking care of them. Actually, I might say the same for people and their children.
There is a question of degree here too though. I have neighbors who have small dog that often barks a bunch early in the morning. I think what is going on is that they let the dog out when they get up and then the dog barks to let them know when it’s ready to come back in. It doesn’t bark very long but it’s enough to wake me up. There’s not much the owner can do about this–the dog needs to go out and a little barking is inevitable. If they were leaving the dog out for an hour or all day while it was barking the whole time, that would be a different story. The problem is, either it’s a situation like mine where there’s really nothing that could be done, or the barking is because the dog is being neglected or not exercised, in which case your complaining is little to change the owner’s treatment of the dog.
Acajou, shut it. The only one ‘heartless’ is the dog owner for not giving a damn about anyone else. And not taking proper care of their animal. Annonymous letter slipping is passive aggressive pansy ass bull crap!
You guys are heartless. You do realize that dogs bark for a reason? You do realize that if you involve 311 and ASPCA immediately the dog could potentially end up at a kill shelter and dead??? This is the number one reason why so many dogs end up at kill shelters.
Many people are inexperienced dog owners and dont know much about animal behavior and the exercise requirements of their pets. Also many people in NYC come from foreign countries were the approach to pets is very different from the West. Dont make the problem worse for the dog without trying to nicely educate the owner of the ramifications of their actions.
Jasonstonestreet if you have a compassionate bone in your body, please do the following:
1. Slip an anonymous letter under her door to tell her that you are concerned about the dog. State that the dog is nuisance barking and you will take necessary steps to get peace and quiet including contacting the landlord, 311 and ASPCA. Let her know that your complaints could result in eviction or possibly forcing her to surrender the dog to a kill shelter or rescue(though many no kill rescues are overburdened). Let her know that she needs to quiet her dog and give a specific time period that she needs to comply or your formal complaints will begin. Give her that amount of time. If she doesnt shape up then
2. Send a letter to the landlord complaining about the noise and suggest the remedy you would like to see ie no barking until after 10 am. If you just want quiet say so- too often landlords mistake your complaints for saying you want the neighbor to get rid of the dog. Also let the landlord know that you will escalate and call 311 for a noise complaint and ASPCA for pet neglect if the problem isnt solved. Then give the landlord a sense of how long it should take before you think your formal complaints will begin to 311 and ASPCA. Give the landlord that amount of time to rectify. If landlords involvement doesnt shape up the situation
3. Then file a noise complaint with 311- dont say anything about the dog yet. The noise complaint should be enough to motivate the landlord. If it doesnt call the landlord again.
4. Finally call the ASPCA about the nuisance barking and suggest why you think this shows the dog is being neglected etc
Of course you’re not being unreasonable, which is the original question. Whether or not you can do anything about it is another thing altogether. The 311/ASPCA route is more complicated than other posters have made it seem.
I went through this with a neighbor who kept two grown pit bulls fenced into a 3’x20′ alley all day every day. They were never walked or cared for at all. He let them out at 7am every day, and they barked all day until they were let in again at about 7pm. He was belligerent and threatening when neighbors tried to talk to him. It took about nine months to solve this problem, and the city and ASPCA were of little help.
The ASPCA can only address serious abuse. Persistently barking dogs are clearly unhappy, but that doesn’t come anywhere near the threshold the ASPCA can act on. In our case, the ASPCA demanded the owner build a shelter for the dogs. That’s all they could do.
Repeated calls by many neighbors to 311 yielded no response. We didn’t get a response until I made a complaint to the city about the DEP not responding. At that point they came out to do a noise inspection. To write a ticket, the DEP would need to observe the dogs barking continually for more than 20 minutes without provocation. Because the dogs were barking at other dogs (ie, with provocation), they could not write a ticket. It didn’t matter that our street was on the way to a dog park, and dogs walk by constantly all day. The laws are very limiting.
The problem was eventually resolved because the owner didn’t actually want the dogs, but he thought they were valuable. And he didn’t like being told what to do by his neighbors. A combination of several visits from ASPCA, DEP and the cops (not to issue summonses, but to try to talk to him), an offer of money for the dogs, and a neighbor with a good relationship with him offering to take the dogs to a shelter was what did the trick. But if he had liked the dogs, I doubt we ever would have resolved that problem. The dogs were out because he wasn’t home. The barking didn’t bother him.
7am is when the noise regulations change – between 11pm and 7am, the noise laws are stricter. DEP said they would have had more leeway if our complaints were pre-7am.
Perhaps this owner doesn’t know how to keep her dog from yapping. Some suggestions might help. Perhaps the approach needs to be different, or she needs to hear from more neighbors. There’s not nearly enough information here to give you really good advice. But then, all you asked was whether you were being reasonable.