I have 3 pups staying on for another month at least and I have today had my neighbour come round and complain about the noise. Although it has been quite muggy, I have had the window closed for the majority of their lives in case the noise upset anyone. The husband opened it last week as they were away and I didn't realise it was still open.

I apologised and said I would close the window. I also said it was just the puppies as the adults weren't that noisy. He begged to differ and said he dreaded the beginning of term as they bark whenever anyone walks past the house. I don't go anywhere and yes they do bark but only when I leave the house and they are alone - which isn't very often. Shopping once a week and dropping or picking up the husband on the odd day I have the car. There is a house of shiht szus who say mine set them off but that really isn't the case as they are at it all of the time. Apparently mine go then the one nxt door but one goes triggering the shiht szus so they are all at it.

My biggest issue is that the neighbours on either side of me are an 'item' and he comes round to complain about something or other and says she's mentioned it so he's 'popped over' to let me know. I asked about the noise literally 3 weeks ago and she said she hadn't noticed anything and even the bigger ones weren't that loud - only when the gardener came etc. So I know he's talking total bo****ks. Even on nice days I keep my poor dogs shut indoors in case it annoys either one of them and even shut doors and gate quietly because they were upsetting her sleep in the morning. Am I bring unreasonable to feel a little ganged up on?

Can anyone suggest anything I could be doing to reduce the yapping? The pups started at 7am this morning but can start at half 6. I am dreading the rest of this month now...Why am I having such a crap time?

Part of me thinks mmm GSD noise (when living/working in a boarding kennel, and living in a trailer next to the kennels, we tended to put GSDs down in the block furthest away!).    But seriously, some people just seem to NEED to complain these days.   I'm sure you explained that these 3 puppies were only 'temporary' and would be going to their new homes shortly, smile sweetly and end the conversation.    Unfortunately unless you live out 'in the sticks' there will be noise to be heard by anybody within ear-shot and with puppies inevitably.   I know what a litter of Bassets sounds like just before they are ready to do home at certain times during the day.   I used to get mine outside for periods during the day so they could play and get some of the energy out - and being in the fresh air meant when they came back indoors, they zonked out.

Other than to see whether these puppies can go to their new homes earlier than 'in another month', I really don't know what your alternatives are.   Puppies especially make noise (especially at mealtimes).   

I would just say with my adults, my neighbours actually liked it that they sounded off if somebody strange was around.   Within reason!

I'm sorry you have to cope with this!!

Dogs are allowed to bark, as long as it isn't for prolonged periods and between 11pm and 7am, then what your doing seems reasonable.

If they complain to the council they will be required to keep a diary of when and how logn the dogs bark.

If this is likely it would be well to invest in one of those security camera's you can get that will tape what they are doing, as it is not uncommon for the complainer to make things up for the diary, so keep your own diary of when they bark when you are there, and also times your not there.

In the 28 years of dog ownership here I had one complaint, about puppies about to leave home following a gale when a fence panel blew down so he could see into my garden, until then he had been unaware of the pups.

He managed one date on his diary saying they had barked from 8am to 8.15pm.  I rang the council and explained that pups were a temporary thing, but that no pups could continually make noise for over 12 hours and that I expect the not was 8 - 8.15 when being fed their breakfast, the lady agreed and never heard anything again.

Mind you on the basis it is hard to be mean to those nice to you, the following Crufts I went round and took him some posh cat food, left him speechless, but never whined at us again, where previously little barbs of why not take the dogs with you whenever you go out etc.

When these pups go why not take around to both of them a bottle of Cava, smile through gritted teeth and thank them for their understanding (not).

I too only allow my dogs outside supervised and if they bark they are straight indoors and when I go out they are where they can't see out, with radio on to minimise external stimulus, so I think I'm pretty good neighbour, but know I need to be with 6 dogs.

Unfortunately Mamabas, One pup is being collected on the 2nd of September when his parents return back from holiday. The other 2 are destined for France so they will be here until the passport comes through. One family have said to get the vaccines down and they will come for the rabies and then stay in the UK for the 28 days and bond with her before travelling. The other family have been in a car crash this week and the wife is recovering from broken ribs. So puppy will stay until cleared to travel and then dad will come and drive her back. So I will have one longer than the others...

Sods law - I'm unwell and the only 3 pups available from this litter ALL have to stay on!

I did plan on taking chocolates round to both but he is a facetious tosser and after retiring, moved to be closer to 'her' on the other side. She refuses to live with him and they maintain separate houses and is painted to be quite miserable but aside from asking us to close the doors quietly when hubby leaves for work at 6.30 every morning and I don't think that's unreasonable. However, she sits in the dark most evenings with the only lights being from her tv and hallway so whenever I use the dog conservatory and turn on our light she turns everything off and leaves her sitting room! I think that's odd and she did say it was like blackpool illuminations but Pops said if it bothers her, she can draw her curtains!

I will look into recording the noise when we aren't home but am thinking of not leaving the bedroom door open as it is on the front of the house and preventing their access might help when we are not there. I leave the tv on when I go out.

There are vertical blinds in the puppy room so I think I will go and get curtains and curtain poles to make it darker for longer in there and hopefully that will help too. I have starting writing up the costs so far in case he calls inland revenue.

I was thinking of having a puppy party on the 3rd of September for the last litter (now 8 months old) but am now wondering if I want to go down that route. Or am I worrying too much for the sake of others at the detriment of my own happiness?

I'd have the puppy party as a walk in nice place and then a dog friendly pub with garden for lunch

It's how we do it on breed walks.

We wanted to do a hog roast in the garden with access to the field behind for the dogs to play. My boy would stay indoors and the girls would be outside if they could behave themselves. I don't think we could foot the bill if we invited everyone to a pub and I also don't think they'd want to come and then have to pay....I think I might have to leave it :( Not really fair when people across the road had 2 barbecues on 2 consecutive weekends and no one grumbled about the noise or cars...but then they don't live in between 'Les misarable'.....

Then Id go ahead especially if a lot of time is likely to be spent in the field wearing the dogs out and then back to yours for food, it's going to be daytime so reasonable noise not an issue.

You sound like a reasonable neighbour although having the breed myself I was lucky mine were quiet and we are in the sticks, at shows you always know where the GSD's are!    A puppy party is a one off event and I would tell the neighbours the date and time, then they can choose to go out or keep their windows closed, or invite them to the party.  Keeping puppies quiet is not possible and it's not forever so as long as you do what you can then you are doing your best to mitigate the nuisance.

I think I am over my initial anger now. I sat down and worked out the total costs of raising this litter and if I include the potential loss of earnings of the last 9 weeks of term I am around £1500 worse off! So he can suck eggs for all I care. To paint a picture of him - when he moved in to the house he held a party for the street and only 3 people turned up....I will invite them and the 3 other people from the street but bearing in mind there will be 20 dogs I will need to think carefully about how I'm going to do this....

I don't see YOU have to fit your life around these individuals, but at the same time, don't give them any excuses to ramp up the angst!!   I have some idiot living up our road which is a cul de sac with a turning area up there which EVERYBODY uses.  Including me.   Some while ago now, one of the people living adjacant to the turning area, who has only been in for just over a year, and who has taken exception to people turning round up there (quite legally, it's a public road), shouted at me when I went up to turn round so I could leave my car on the road outside my house, facing the traffic.   I prefer to leave the car on the road outside during the day as we have a very steep driveway and have to keep the handbrake on hard, with the car in gear and chocked.    I'd been for a doc. appointment and it was out from around 10 am until 5 pm when I went to get it on the driveway again and noticed it had been KEYED on the passenger side.    Further, during that night, 'somebody' threw creosote, or equivalent, on the rear.     I can only think it's this man because having lived here for over 8 years now, we've never had anything like this happen - and we'd only had this car which is red and obvious, for 2 months - it being 4 months old only.   The scratch cost me £280. with a local repair shop - the dealership quoted me over £500.  The creosote washed off, but I can still see marks on the bumper which won't come off.    To say I was furious would be putting it mildly.   I told the police and they sent me a dummy CCTV camera to put up and we bought a security light.   He's now moving!!!  I can't prove this was him but others have been creosoted and had a run in with him.     Just to tell you all this because it seems we live in times when people are very easily upset, whatever the cause.

Also, when we were attached with our hounds, (semi), when we went out we always shut the door to the adjoining rooms, to hopefully lessen any noise mine might make.   And confined them to the kitchen so there was also the hallway between next door and us.   We never had complaints but we did have a run in with a couple of kids who moved in next door, and from the time they came home, played their guitar in the adjoining room - it was LIVE.   And then there was the 24+hour party ..............  

Was a time when I'd ONLY live miles out in the country but we are too old to live that remote now.  

I hope you can avoid any more nasties, but don't poke the nest with them if you can avoid it.

I don't ever retaliate Mamabas. Each time they have (either of them) have knocked on the door I have politely apologised and said we would rectify the issue. The fence on her side fell down, it was her responsibility to replace it but we did it the week we moved in. They wanted to know why we have 2 gates on the side of our house and whether we could remove the 1st one as it was waking her when the hubby went to work in the morning. I politely refused and said, if the dogs got past the big gate, at least there was a 2nd one to stop them going out onto the road. We also live in a close. If the dogs got out and went and fouled in their respective gardens or anything then they would be the 1st to complain. I have had 2 incidences when we only had the 1st gate and leafleters ran off when they've seen the dogs - leaving the gate open and me having to go and collect them off the street barefoot!

I went shopping yesterday but I closed the bedroom doors so the dogs were in the living room and hallway. Sadly the window in the living room is on his side too and there is the ac vent going out of it so I can't close it. Hopefully though, they weren't as loud. I also closed the window in the puppy room and the dividing doors, leaving them with just fans on. Not ideal as the air got hot but I was only gone for an hour. We are also going to install curtains to keep the room dark longer in the mornings. They were up at 6 today but hubby gave them all a chicken wing which kept them busy and then tired them out enough to sleep until 9. Can't stop them from waking up earlier as the older dogs get up with him at half 5 so they hear him moving about and want to play :)

I am saddened by how some people think they have more of a right to something than others - especially things like turning in the road etc. I get annoyed when people park too close to your drive so that there isn't enough turning room to get your own car on to your own drive but aside from that I don't have many pet peeves. At the old house - new neighbours had a trampoline and in the summer all the kids would be round and screaming the home owner's name from the trampoline half way up a 122 foot long garden. It would wind the dogs up and they'd bark. I never complained, just kept them indoors and kept the door closed. Hubby and I had a bbq for us 2 a few weeks ago and you could hear her tutting as she closed the back door. I didn't say anything but remember thinking at the time that we weren't making any noise, her washing wasn't out, and we are just as entitled to enjoy our garden as she is hers...Some people are just petty. But she's upset the neighbours on the other side have installed a 6 foot fence!

I agree, some people do like to get upset about trivial matters and complain to all and sundry.

My inlaws used live on a fairly narrow road on a housing estate. Their neighbours were perfectly nice, but disliked anyone else parking on the road outside their house despite having a large front garden. They acted like that bit of road was theirs and nobody else should use it. So every morning after everyone had gone to work, the wife would get her car out of the garage and park it on the road outside of the house and leave it there until everyone had come home from work, then put it back in the garage just to make sure no one parked there.

Bizarre Jodi your in laws neighbours. It's awful how a couple can affect quite a lot of people with either loud blaring music all day into the night or getting possessive about parking!seems here each house has 2-3 cars now and it's not a wide road but we all manage.

We have a drive and garage but our 1960's build house has a 1960's equivalent width garage - our mondeo doesn't fit! We always park on the drive. The garden is gravelled and our guests are asked to park on it to avoid inconvenience to our neighbours as 2 cars cannot park side by side on this Close. I have heard but don't know if it true, that this council tickets anyone who parks on the kerb so I won't risk guests being lumbered with a ticket because of where we live :) The houses opposite all have more than one car and park on the road.

Sometimes I wish I could fast forward time..reach retirement and then go live in a shed in a field or wood....must be easier than this. only 31 more years to go (unless the government moves the goal posts again!).

Pups are more settled today and a lot less yappy but then I knew it would take time for them to settle after losing siblings over the weekend.

> So every morning after everyone had gone to work, the wife would get her car out of the garage and park it on the road outside of the house and leave it there until everyone had come home from work, then put it back in the garage just to make sure no one parked there.

I've heard it all now!  How bloody PETTY.

Donkeys years ago I lived in a terraced house, didn't have my own car.  One day my sister visited in her car and parked with a few inches in front of next door's house.  He rammed my sister's car!

I knew people were petty enough to leave wheelie bins in the road to save their spots and I have been known on occasion to move them and park anyway...as I pay my road tax just like everyone else. But not something I would do now for worry of damage but also I am a lot more considerate these days.

But damaging a car because it was there temporarily? Never realised people could be so small minded....