my next door neighbours have recently gotten a dog, a border collie bitch, who is increadibly barky. she barks all the time, whenever anyone comes into the close, whenever there is the faintest noise, early in the morning and late at night. she also flings herself at the door if your outside it (locking up for example), you can see the door shake.

now i am starting moving to my new place tomorrow so its not been to much of an issue appart for encouraging the occassional bark from tio, and it is very occassional (bless the bullmastiffs quiet nature or he'd be going nutty with it!), but i feel like i should maybe say something before we go. i don't know if its just that they don't know ways to deal with it maybe?

any suggestions? they are a lovely couple but i think they are just not sure what to do or maybe not aware of it (they surely must not be in when its at its worst)

Hi Kim,

without knowing the dog's history and seeing it's reactions to specific stimmuli it's difficult to suggest ways around it because we can't know the true causes. 

I would mention it politely to the neighbours in case they aren't aware of the severity of the problem - as you say, you're moving on so with luck they'll realise you're trying to be helpful here for their dog's sake and any new neighbour arriving :)  If they're informed now they can hopefully seek assistance or indeed may be able to curb this behaviour themselves once they know the triggers.

If it's a noise sensitivity response then perhaps if they attempted to keep her in an area of the house with a radio playing in the background when they're not around it could help but, OTOH, may be of no use whatever if this is a guarding based reaction for example.

regards, Teri

i was thinking i might write them a polite note and mention maybe keeping her out of the hall when they are not in, maybe a DAP diffuser, stuffed kongs etc. the radio is a good idea

> i might write them a polite note

Good idea - so long as she doesn't also shred the mail :-D

Teri

lol possibly, she went hairy mental at the posty today. poor man met tio and i in the stairs once and i suspect he's very scared of dogs, as soon as T even looked at him he legged it (it was quite funny actually, he nearly left a cloud of dust behind he was so nippy- tios standing there like "what was that??")