In the neighborhood that I live there is hardly a house withOUT a dog. At least once a day there is a lost dog post on our neighborhood Facebook page. It is not a surprise that at pretty much anytime during the day and night you can hear barking coming from somewhere.
Most of the time this is probably not a big deal, you may hardly notice it. Or possibly your dogs are doing the barking. After a while, it can become troublesome. You may find that it goes on longer than you feel is necessary. Or it is inconveniently late at night and it feels like they are standing right outside your windows.
Our family owns three dogs, I have been on both sides of the barking. Trying to get your own dogs to be quiet or as the neighbor wishing that the barking would, FOR THE LOVE OF SLEEPING CHILDREN STOP!!!
You may feel like there isn’t much you can do to silence the barking in your neighborhood, especially if you are not the dog owner. BUT the truth is there are steps you can take as an owner AND a neighbor that can limit the barking.
- You can invest in an Ultrasonic Sound Machine for your yard. These vary in size and price ranging from $40 to $145. These machines will detect the noise the dog is making by barking and emit an ultrasonic sound not normally detectable by humans. After a while, the dogs will realize that their barking is causing the noise and it is supposed to deter them from barking. This is handy if the dogs that are barking are not your own.
- Block your dogs from the sides of your house. We noticed that our dogs would interact and bark with the neighbors’ dogs at our side fence and our dogs would bark at our front gate. We decided to block our dogs from going to the side fence and the front gate by placing wire fencing from the side of our house to the back fence. This has helped tremendously in decreasing the barking between our dogs and the neighbors’ dogs AND it has decreased the barking done by our dogs at people and cars driving by the front gate.
- Add a dog window to your fence. Sometimes the reason that a dog is barking is just that they can sense people/strangers but they can not see them. They make these “windows” you can add to your fence so that your dogs can see but can not get out. These are advertised to help lessen barking but also the damage a jumping dog can do to the fence over time.
- Invest in dog training. There are local training services like Sit Means Sit that offer Doggie Boot Camp that can help with the all-around manners of your dog including digging and nuisance barking.
- Get a bark collar. Many people do not agree with shock collars for their pets feeling that they are inhumane. There are now Bark collars that offer no shock options like vibration or tones that interrupt and stop barking. Or others that spray a lemon-scented citronella spray to train dogs not to bark.
- Block the view of the dogs. If your neighbor’s dogs seem to bark every time you step into your yard you can try to block their view with large plants or hedges. This could decrease their stress or their territorial feelings by increasing the space between your areas.
