Deterrent for barking dogs?

Playing snarling dog recordings is pouring gasoline on a fire.
You can buy high pitched sound recordings that burst at every bark.

There are battery operated devices to combat barking dogs. Look into it. I believe they are ultrasonic.

@kritiper jinx!

Try a barking dog birdhouse

Talk to your neighbors and tell them the barking dogs bother you.

They’ve just moved in. We haven’t even met them yet. They’re around the corner, and the far back of their yard abuts our side fence. I don’t feel like this is a good way to get acquainted—but why aren’t they out there doing something with all the intolerable racket going on? Wonder if they’re tied up watching the game and they’ve banished their loud dogs to ruin our afternoon.

I read somewhere that if a barking dog creates a disturbance of more than 5 minutes, I can call the cops. It’s been about an hour.

Egad, my son set the thing running in a loop and then just left. It wasn’t easy for me to reach it in his crowded room, but I knocked it to the bed and piled two pillows over it. Recording stilled. Dogs quiet. One small victory in a field were victories are rare.

I will look up those ultrasonic devices. They seem to run about $30. Worth it.

Bark collars are effective. You use the lowest setting that gets results.

All my neighbor’s dogs love me!!! I keep a bag of dog biscuits with me when I’m outside. When they first moved in, IF they barked at me, I’d tell them NO & talked to them soft & sweet. Whenever they didn’t bark, they got a treat. Doesn’t take long to get them to think…Oh boy, I’m getting a biscuit!!!

@LadyMarissa I tried that once. The dogs always barked and were always stuffed with biscuits.

Barking dogs are regulated by city or county ordinance. Call your local government and see what they say.

First I would like to remind you that they are establishing their territory. They do not know their new home and the barking sounds back only make it worse. Let them win. All that barking means they are nervous and hearing other barking just amps them up.

Second, introduce yourself to your new neighbors. Complain without complaining. Mention that you hear their dogs every night and you understand they may be afraid of the people next door so you wish to introduce yourself and your family to your dogs to lessen their anxiety. Say that you understand it must be driving them crazy hearing all that barking.
If they asked about the barking dog sounds say you recently learned your son was doing that in hopes they would stop but you asked him to stop because it would have the opposite effect and apologize for that.
This will make you sound sincere and earnest about getting to a resolution that would make everyone happy.
Have them stand with the dog when intros happen. Give them a treat if they follow a command you give. Hopefully that are well trained.
Its important that no one act stressed. Dogs are great at picking that out.
Then do the into’s again through the adjacent windows. At different time of the days. Let the dogs listen to your voices so they learn to recognize them even when their owners aren’t home so they know not to be fearful.
Talk nicely but in a firm tone to the dogs so they know you aren’t fearful of anxious.

I did this with a neighbor once who rescued a German Shepard. He barked at everything but me and at night. One night he put out in the screened porch because he kept barking. I only had to open my window and tell him he is perfectly fine so shut up before I come out there. It was like 2 am. He stopped immediately.
Bye the way. Dogs don’t do well sometimes with male voices if they are really deep. Does your son have a really deep voice? I think they think of it like a low growl especially if it sounds angry.

I would like to add that if they are too busy to settle in the dogs will feel great anxiety until they see all their familiar things in place. If things are still in boxes you can offer to help them settle in or offer your son to take the dogs for a walk if they are friendly. They will probably turn you down but might take you up on the dog walks as it can give the dogs some very much needed attention and them time to unpack. And again the dogs will get calmer and once they know your son well enough maybe stop barking when being told to do so.

From personal experience screaming at them “saying to shut the hell up!” Doesn’t work.

Bribe them with sausages.

I would think the first step is to go over and talk nicely to the owners about the problem.

This is a great Q. I didn’t know about the high pitched devices made to calm barking dogs.

I likely would give them three weeks to settle in, and then I would talk to the owners. Their reaction will tell you something. They might be very apologetic and say the move has the dogs barking more, or they might be dismissive. Personally, I don’t think an hour of barking is from moving. An hour means the owners are doing nothing to stop the barking in my opinion, assuming the owners were home and healthy, it’s unacceptable and a bad sign.

If talking to the neighbors is uncomfortable you could write them an anonymous note. They won’t know which neighbor it came from.

There are laws and ordinances for this sort of thing, and usually being neighborly is better than calling the cops right away. The cops aren’t great at dealing with this sort of thing from the experiences of friends and relatives of mine, although I would resort to calling them, if nothing else was working, as a final ditch effort. I know two people who moved because the noise neighbors were making became too much.

I’ll send the Q to Longgone.

Throw out that stupid recording. Your son has effectively convinced the neighbor dogs that your house contains a threat that they must guard against. That has set a bad precedent.
Time the barking. Actually time it, note and write it down. A ten minute barking session can feel like an hour. Same time every day? Your details describe only one incident. Very few people can accurately assess such things.
Most important, talk to your neighbors if this is a regular occurrence.

Good luck with this.

@canidmajor I agree with you. Most dogs will bark occasionally for a while. It’s duration and frequency that are problematic.

@Jeruba You might want to wait and see if this is a pattern before taking steps. I had a neighbor years ago who tied her dog up at 7 each morning and it barked right under my bedroom window. After some days, I went and talked to her. She appreciated that I had come in person, was a new dog owner and showed me her set up. We negotiated a solution which I unfortunately don’t remember the specifics of. If it is a regular pattern of lengthy barking, maybe you can suggest that the dogs be let out in a different part of the yard.

The ultrasonic bark deterrents do not soothe the dogs, they are considered to be cruel as they can hurt the dogs’ ears and ratchet up their stress levels.

”Are ultrasonic bark devices cruel?
Yes, the ultrasonic bark control devices are considered to be cruel because they could increase your dog’s stress levels, which could negatively impact your four-legged best friends’ physical and mental health.

Do ultrasonic sounds hurt dogs?
High-pitched ultrasonic sounds can very very loud and irritating to your dog and even have the potential to hurt their ears if they are powerful enough. If you do have something ultrasonic in your home, you can keep an eye on your dog’s behavior to watch for signs the sounds is bothering or annoying them.”
Источник: https://midogguide.com/dog-breeds/do-ultrasonic-bark-control-hurt-dogs.html

Calling the police would be the last resort, and it’s something I wouldn’t do ever, for barking dogs. Even though it’s supposedly anonymous, people often find out who called on them, and this would totally ruin any chance you’d have for good neighborly relations in the future.

The best recourse is a conversation with the neighbor. This is about the dog and not you or your neighbor.
I grew up living next door to a dog like this. There was nothing that could be done in our case until the dog passed after 10 years.

Someone told me that they would shoot a pellet gun in the air or near the dogs. Hope he didn’t shoot the dogs.

I have one of those barking dog birdhouses. I face it towards my back neighbor. It works on two of his three dogs. The third dog keeps barking, so the battery runs down pretty quickly.

That barking dog birdhouse thing needs to be really close to the source of the sound for it to work. I know because we had one. Also it doesn’t work if the dog is hard of hearing.

It also doesn’t work on big, tough dogs like my other neighbor’s Pit Bull.

I did some sleuthing and found out that the dog slept all day and barked at night. So I did the same and all was well.

Treats. I make friends with all my neighbors dogs, with permission, and I taught them to ‘be quiet’. Much easier than expecting their humans to correct poor behavior.
A fairly new arrival has two Jack Russell’s. Every time they were out barking non-stop I let mine out. After a few greetings I had mine be quiet. I said loudly, “no we don’t bark for no reason, even in our own yard, that’s rude.” It works.

The ultrasonic items (like the birdhouse) only have a range of 50 feet. If the dog goes outside that range it is useless.

If they’re smart, the dog knows where to stand so the dog barker thing won’t go off. I’ve seen that happen.

If they just moved in, is there a chance the dogs are just still unfamiliar and need a bit more time to adjust to the new environment?

Step 1 – talk to the new neighbors. I recently got new neighbors and they had 3 dogs, one of which is a barker. They are somewhat embarrassed and annoyed with the dog (as are most of the neighbors) but don’t know what to do. There are things like citronella collars that can be used to curb barking, but they didn’t know about any of them.

Honestly, bring it up to your neighbors. Just be polite about it “hi, my name is (insert your name here) I am your neighbor, I live (describe how close you are), I’m sorry to bother you, but could I please have a minute of your time? The fence line of your yard is close to our son’s
bedroom, and while I am sure they are good dogs, they can be loud and their barking keeps our son awake. Is there anyway that maybe you could bring your dogs inside at night? I’m sorry to introduce myself this way, but I am unsure of what else to do.”

Believe it or not, this may actually help you foster a friendly relationship with your neighbor as long as you approach them calmly and politely (don’t be an “Karen”)

Psychological studies have shown that by asking people for favors, you can grow closer to them quicker (the favor here being allowed a moment to speak with them and asking them to put their dogs inside at night) it may sound petty, but it is because while we don’t like being indebted to others, there is a sense of power or pridefulness about having others in our “debt”- the sense of superiority, however small, that we gave them something they needed but could not get for themselves, and they had to acknowledge that they needed us.
Yes, this applies to even the smallest of things.
It can form friendships, or resentments such as if after the favor you act ungrateful/unsatisfied, or if you never reciprocate.

Honestly, most people will appreciate it if you try to resolve the problem by talking to them about it. Your neighbors probably have no idea that their dogs are bothering you, especially if the barking occurs far enough away from their house that they can not hear it themselves or the sound is faint enough they don’t understand how it could bother anyone.

This could also be an ice-breaker, and years later you will laugh and tell the funny story about how you became friends because their dogs’ barking kept your son awake.

Sounds silly, but the my Maid of Honor made included in her toast at my wedding about how we became close friends after I punched her in the face shortly after we first met, lol.

Go over there, be friendly, introduce yourself, shake hands in greeting, and calmly bring up the problem and ask about a possible solution like a rational adult.

Welcome to Fluther @Ikara!

Thanks for all responses and suggestions.

Just as a point of information, have you ever been the one with the barking dog, and neighbors came to speak to you? If so, how did that go?

Don’t have dogs that just bark (never had dogs that just kept barking) ! They bark to come in that is it.

You’ve learned what not to do (play sounds of dogfights). Something you could try from your own house is to play a different recording: there’s music that’s designed to calm dogs down. The different albums by Through A Dog’s Ear are scientifically proven to work and available on Amazon Music, Spotify, etc. You could also make a playlist of the limited content available on YouTube. I use this music for calming dogs who miss their owners or just eternally anxious canines all the time, and it works extremely well. It’s being played at shelters to soothe dogs even in that stressful environment now.

Since the dogs are in a new territory, there’s a chance they just need time to get used to what’s normal in this new place. If they bark at things, like in response to a plane flying overhead or you walking out of your house, they might just stop as soon as they’ve learned to expect all these new sounds and sights. If you can’t determine any triggers, though, the dogs are probably bored and unhappy. In that case, they need enrichment. Don’t buy an ultrasonic device – @canidmajor is right, those are cruel. Instead, if you want to help solve the problem with money, buy two rubber Kongs at a pet store. Fill with all-natural, nonsweetened peanutbutter (the other stuff is toxic to dogs), and gift to your neighbors along with some human cookies to welcome them. And I’d do just one regular visit before coming over to complain. I think that would go a long way towards proving yourself a friendly, calm individual just looking for peace.