Thanks, eld6161. I have a feeling a lot of people will want to vent here :)

For those of you jumping in, here's the previous thread that turned from dogs peeing in yard to dogs barking-

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5927431/dogs-peeing-in-yard#n=138

Years ago, we lived next to a house with a barking dog. Our bedroom windows faced their backyard, but we lived on different streets.

It was an absolute nightmare. This poor dog was left out the majority of the time and had some sort of anxiety issues. I honestly don’t know how he could bark for 12 or so continuous hours without seemingly taking a breath. I felt like I was going to lose my mind. I couldn’t sleep, lost a lot of weight, felt miserable. And I’m not overly sensitive to barking at all, I’m very laid-back about these things. But that black lab had the loudest, repetitive, and most brain rattling bark I’ve ever heard in my life. It echoed throughout our house ... sounded like he was barking into a megaphone. Day after day after day.

We called our city, no help. We tried talking to the homeowners, no luck. Other neighbors complained to them, nothing. One night, they were gone, and he’d been barking non-stop from early morning on (it was midnight by then). I looked up their phone number, took my phone outside by the fence, blocked my number from Caller ID, and called them. Their answering machine came on and I filled the entire tape with their dog barking. I always wonder what they thought when they came home, saw their tape full, hit “play”, and it was just their dog barking.

Anyway, one day and the next and next ... we didn’t hear barking. We don’t know if the poor thing died or was rehomed. Those awful people let him suffer so much. They did later get a pair of little yappy dogs, who both barked a lot, but it didn’t bother us.

Oh, my, my local FB group just had a loooong thread about barking dogs.

One comment was, a person went over to their neighbor's, inside, and commented on the dog barking coming from outside. She asked her neighbor, how can you stand that dog barking for so long? The neighbor said it barks a lot, she tried to ignore it. And the first person suddenly realized it was her own dog. So, sometimes the dog owner really, truly, doesn't realize how their dog sounds.

I currently have no complaints in my neighborhood - I outlived all the problem dogs/owner, lol, but it's been a major thorn in my side for all the years we have lived here. The first was a neighbor whose dog was an outdoor dog and would chase and bark at wildlife ALL night long. I can't tell you how many nights we called her in the middle of the night to quiet her dog. My husband used to yell at him from our bedroom window (sparsely, wooded neighborhood) which sometimes worked. We put up with that dog for probably 10 years, lots of complaints to the owner. She FINALLY did something when someone from ACROSS the saltwater bay we live on tracked down the source of the barking and complained to her. She started locking him on the porch at night. Finally.

Then the property between our homes sold and someone built a huge house that kind of reminds me of a holiday inn express. There is a covered, very long approach to the door, all paved, with stone on the front of the house, which faces my house, right below my bedroom. They have had a series of large dogs, all trained to bark at that door to be let in. It was like a huge echo chamber. Every single morning at a time way before when I had to get up. Then periodically during the day; awakened my grandson from his naps every time he was here. The dogs would be let out and run the perimeter of their property, barking at every squirrel and bird. Barked every time I opened a door to the outside, or walked in my yard. Or turned a page in my book I was reading in my back yard. UGH. Complaining did nothing; you know, "dogs being dogs", etc. I finally got a small airhorn like you use on boats and when they'd go on and on, I'd give them a blast. That shut them up and apparently alerted the neighbors that they'd barked too long.

All of those dogs have died and since the neighbors are now retired and like to travel, thankfully haven't replaced them. I never thought I'd live long enough to have a relatively dog quiet home. Ahhhhh!

We had a neighbor who actually could not hear their dog barking in the early morning hours (because of placement of their kennel). After telephoning them when the dog started barking one morning at 4, we never had the problem again. Plus they came over with a cake as a peace offering.

Olychick- I laughed out loud at the airhorn! One can also call animal control.

LALA, Animal Control is no help in my outside the city location. They won't even help with strays, you have to catch and transport. Barking dogs? Not a chance.

Same here, Oly. Frustrating for us then because the line was where our yards met. My street was city, they were in county. I paid more taxes for absolutely nothing.

I like the air horn!

After talking to the next door owner 3 times, who didn't believe the dog could bark for over an hour non-stop, one day we couldn't get them on the phone so we called the police to ask if they had a cell phone on file for them.

They didn't, but they came out, but they are not to enter the property with a dog barking, because they don't know if the dog could attack.

Just then the owner pulled in the driveway. The officer gave them a ticket, $40 fine.

The next day I went over with flowers, I hadn't intended for them to get a ticket, just wanted to get a hold of them and quiet the dog. We were both friendly. The neighbor told me when they leave the dog out they leave the man-door to the open, and I was welcome to put the dog in the garage and close the door. Well, I'm not about to enter the yard of a barking dog, either; I knew this was a sweet dog but big and I didn't know it all THAT well.

And then they moved.

Well ... I'm a bit embarrassed to tell this story here, but I'm going to anyway.

Years ago (as in, ex-husband years ago), we lived behind a family with a non-stop barking German Shepherd. It was a beautiful dog, but they put Heidi outside and left her there for hours on end, all alone. She was obviously bored and lonely, and she made her complaint known by constant - and I mean CONSTANT - barking. They would often go off for an entire day, and sometimes entire weekends (I assume they had someone come over to at least feed and water the dog; they didn't seem like completely ignorant and heartless people where animals were concerned), and it drove the ex and I both absolutely insane. You know what big, loud barks Shepherds can have anyway, right? And this one was planted almost directly behind our bedroom windows. We had an average-sized fenced backyard, but of course that kind of sharp noise is going to carry quite vividly. Heidi barked in the morning, she barked at noon, she barked in the afternoon, and she barked deep into the night. It was torture.

We had no HOA (well, not that it would've done us any good anyway), but did speak to the neighbors first, who expressed surprise at the issue and acted like they at least understood how it was affecting us. We spoke with adjacent neighbors who also claimed to be driven half mad by the persistently-barking Heidi. We called the city a number of times, and I don't remember if they actually sent an Animal Control representative out or not -- I only know that we called and did all we knew how to do.

It went on and on and ON and on, and one day my ex looked up their number (back in the day when everyone had landlines and phone books), dialed it, was greeted with an answering machine, and HE proceeded to bark like a deranged idiot into the receiver for a very long time, and then hung up. I wasn't particularly proud of him for doing that, but I understood it came from a place of desperation.

The barking continued, and the issue culminated with a suit filed in municipal court. I am aware that admitting that makes me sound like an especially litigious individual (given our recent issue with the cooking vent dorks next door), but I have to think that I've just been unfortunate to live near a couple of households of real dolts throughout the years. Of course, Heidi's owners were furious when they received a court summons, and presto-changeo! - Heidi instantly "went away." The neighbors that claimed the dog barking drove them insane too were called as witnesses, and they were mad that the thing got taken to court, so lied before the judge and said, "Oh, no -- it hasn't really been a PROBLEM for us." And the owners of Heidi claimed that they had gotten rid of the dog, so no harm, no foul - and the case wrapped up with no verdict rendered.

A couple of weeks after that, Heidi came back. Yep.

Not long after that, though, Heidi and her owners were transferred and moved away, and we remained in that house relatively sane for a few more years. I still can't quite believe that a barking dog engendered that kind of action, but it was absolutely HORRIBLE and there seemed to be absolutely no end in sight at the time. I still kinda cringe a bit when I see a German Shepherd, as unfair as that may be. Heidi is surely long dead by now, poor thing. But OMG, when she was alive and kickin', that girl could BARK. And bark and bark and bark and bark and bark and bark and BARK.

I absolutely cannot stand barking dogs who are left outside for long periods of time. It is so unkind to the dog, they do that only because they are upset. If you are going to abandon a dog outside to bark unhappily, why get a dog??

I can't even stand it when my cats whine at me. (And they do.)

Ida! I always laugh about calling and filling the neighbors’ answering machine with their dog barking, I never thought to bark myself. 😂

Our current issue (now that the offensive vent is gone) is a barking dog that resides a few houses down. I'm actually not even sure which backyard the barking is coming from, but know the direction. Since our homes are so close together, it would be fairly easy to peek over fences and just take a look around, but I haven't taken the time to do such a thing yet. The barking is not constant, but it's an obviously larger dog that will get going and bark repeatedly for a couple of hours at a time. I think that's unreasonable that a dog owner would allow even that. It's a very predictable bark too -- not a "woof" but a staccato "woof-woof-woof", three "woofs" in a row, at regular intervals. I have gotten up and gone inside the house when hearing it repeatedly from my patio. One afternoon I even found myself standing in the backyard and facing the general direction of the barks and just yelling, SHUT UP! -- until I realized that only made me sound insane to anyone who might be outside at the same time.

This past weekend I took my little Beats speaker outside and turned up my music JUST loud enough to cover the barking. I was listening to some nice, mellow tunes but pretty much mentally daring anyone nearby to complain about hearing my music (especially after enduring a ginormous speaker brought outside by college kids two houses down during shelter-in-place, the whole cooking vent fiasco, and Sir Barksalot a few houses away). Were a complaint to come my way, I would've blasted death metal at top volume. Seriously.

Geeze Louise Ida! You have had more than your fair share of inconsiderate neighbors!! There are two large dogs down at the intersection of our road who are in/out dogs. You'd never know they are there UNTIL a nearby dog, that they can see, comes out. These dogs are a good distance from us, but if we are outside, we hear them. It's just a short thing - alerting their owners to the other dog I guess. LOL Our little dog was not a barker unless she was alerting us and if she had been, we would not have let that go on. As said, there is some reason the poor dog continues to bark. Hey, here in my rural area, I occasionally hear a nearby donkey bray when he is upset! LOL Not even sure where he is, but ever now and then you hear him. I hope this issue is soon solved for you and that you can have some nice evenings on your patio! You have created a lovely little oasis out there and you deserve to enjoy it.

Aw, so nice to see Callie again, Faron. She is such a sweetie.

IdaClaire- You're not the only one who has yelled shut up out of desperation.

Do not even get me started. I am surrounded by dogs. I like a lot of them. My yard is a mass of brown spots from their pee. I wish their was a way to electrify the lawn to give them a little tingle when they tinkle.

My neighbor has a nervous little dog. Most of the time he is pretty cute

and funny. He was rescued from a woman who lived in an apartment building . Her story was something about breaking up with a boyfriend and couldn’t keep the dog. I am pretty sure the problem was that the dog barked all day while she was at work. Now my neighbors have the dog and it barks incessantly when they go out. An ear piercing yap. Of course they go out and I am left here to listen to it. I’ve tried the air horn. It stops for two seconds and starts again.

So many anxious dogs with their needs not being met.

I have a friend who has two piercingly loud terriers. they were never disciplined and grew up to be super obnoxious in every way possible. that family is lazy. when they get sick of the dogs acting up indoors, they send them to the backyard and ignore it for a long time. they're well aware of how annoying it is but have worn down and stopped caring what the neighbors think, just so they can get a little peace in their own house. I'm sure their neighbors hate it.

they genuinely love their dogs and are nice people but like I said, also really lazy. thankfully they're not planning on getting any more dogs when these two die.

My grandson has been playing minecraft with his school friends online and via Facetime. They get on their ipads for the game, then on facetime on their phones so they can talk. One time, with one particular friend I had to have him use his earbuds because I could hear his friend's dog barking in the background, and barking and barking.

I heard another funny story of someone on a zoom meeting and their dog started barking, then all the dogs of the other participants heard it and THEY all started barking. Kind of funny to imagine!

I never let my dog outside unless I am out with her in the fenced yard or she's out doing her business and I'm nearby to bring her in immediately if she starts barking. I cannot stand nuisance barking and I will not tolerate it from mine. She is a White Swiss Shepherd (essentially same thing a German Shepherd) and my previous dog was a German Shepherd. As Ida noted, it is incredible how loud these girls can be (boys too). It requires training and attention to make sure she isn't a nuisance barker. If I gave her a dog door and let her do as she pleased, I'm positive she'd be in the back yard barking obnoxiously and driving all of my neighbors crazy. As-is I am currently in a battle of wills to stop her from barking at passersby through our glass front door. She loves the sound of her own voice. When you read about the breed, you will read about how "vocal" they can be, which includes everything from barking, howling, whining, and other odd noises. They can be wonderful dogs but they are a handful and can be trouble if not properly trained, supervised, and exercised.

In general I feel very sorry for dogs that are constant nuisance barkers because they are typically lonely, at least somewhat neglected, and possibly stressed out / anxious. And I also have a lot of anger towards owners that allow their dogs to bother neighbors. We have called animal control before on a neighbor who let their dog bark for hours on end when we couldn't take it anymore. I don't think it really made a difference. We've since moved to a different neighborhood where the dogs seem at least marginally more supervised. Fewer loose dogs have come after us when I'm running or walking my dog on leash. And the one nuisance barking dog that would bark for hours seems to to be gone. Same house as the two dogs who bolted from a garage when the owner opened and came charging across the street to attack my dog and I when we were running one morning. I hope the dogs are in a better home now.

I've been fortunate then because I've only had a few barking dog issues that persisted. Now that we're in an over 55 with smaller yards it hasn't ever been a problem because there are no fences and dogs are not permitted to be left outside alone. Every now and then we'll hear dogs barking as they pass each other on walks but that's about it.

A friend of mine had a miniature schnauzer with a really annoying barking problem. I've never known a dog who could bark for hours like that. They bought a device for the dog collar that could be set for a certain number of barks and if the dog exceeded that it would get an unpleasant zap.

They set it at 3 barks and it didn't take long for Charley to learn to bark 3 times, pause and then bark 3 more....on and on and on....

The one time we thought we might have to say something to our elderly neighbor about his barking dog we were going to try this: it's a bird house that emits an ultra sonic noise to stop the barking.

https://www.chewy.com/petsafe-outdoor-ultrasonic-bark/dp/48543?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=hg&utm_content=PetSafe&utm_term=&gclid=CjwKCAjw_qb3BRAVEiwAvwq6VluMwS_9A7yujcoeYnT-jw8Vu91aQ10SPSndROlmPH1bgb1ue3oDcBoCDakQAvD_BwE

We have a Great Pyrenees who barks the second she steps out into our fenced yard to let any would-be threats know that she is on duty. She barks if another dog barks in the distance. She barks if a leaf falls. She can literally lie on the floor in the house with her head flat on the floor and full throttle bark. She is bred to be alert to any and all perceived threats and barking is what she is genetically programmed to do. I’m very aware of it and jump to end it. One of our neighbors complained within a month of our move to the neighborhood but we haven’t heard from them again and it’s been over a year. My other dog never barks. Owners who ignore a constantly barking dog suck.

on a related note, much as I love our pyr, I won’t own another one due to the barking. And that’s heartbreaking because our pyr really is the most wonderful dog.

DD and DSIL have a labradoodle who has been trained to NEVER EVER bark. Once, I was at DD’s alone with the twins. Mutso let out a series of sharp barks and scared me witless. All I could think of was I didn’t have a weapon to protect the twins! I knew if he were barking, there must be really really bad people trying to break in. Uh, nope. It was an elderly lady delivering flowers to my daughter. Whew! He doesn’t bark at UPS, FedEx, or the postman. I don’t know why he decided to bark at the lady delivering flowers.

This is when I'm so glad we live in the country. After we moved here in our mid-20's is when we got our first dog.

I can only remember two instances when dog barking was a problem. When I used to babysit DS1's children from birth to 4 or 5, it was at their house in the country about ten miles from us. UPS always delivered packages (ringing the doorbell then leaving) during nap time and both of their Shih Tzu's would yap and yap and yap. Always woke the kids up, and me too. :) I finally put a note on the front door asking them not to ring the doorbell because of children sleeping. They never did it again.

Now this story really burned my hide & I had no choice but to find humor in the situation. Living in the country and having indoor/outdoor dogs, they'd bark when they'd hear something or see a critter whenever we let them out to potty. DS1, his family, and the two Shih Tzu's, built a house behind us.

I believe it was the first morning when DS1 had to go to work after the move. He gets up a 5am and leaves at 6am. He needs his sleep. At the time I was waking at 4am, and the first thing I had to do was let the dogs out. While they were out I had to go to the bathroom, and the dogs started barking very loud because they're big.

The phone rings and it was DS asking me if I'd get the dogs in the house so he can sleep, plus they were waking up the kids.

Now we have to watch their barking in the early morning hours and after bedtime for DS1's family. Neighbors, how dare they! :)

Who do I complain to about the squirrels that taunt my dogs? 😄

They know there are dogs in this yard yet they choose to scamper through our trees taunting the dogs. They do it on purpose and sit there "chattering" at the dogs.

It drives the dogs crazy, specially the one shepherd mix that has high prey drive and has had success catching a few, so she is even more driven in her pursuit. You can tell the squirrel bark, it sounds like police dogs when they know there is a pursuit coming. Once that bark starts we have to punish the bully squirrels by ending their game and bringing the dogs inside!!

My dogs are pretty quiet otherwise.

Chispa - you mean evil demon-squirrels like this? Who sit on the bird feeder and taunt you? Lucky me - for some bizarre reason my Lab totally ignores them, she saves her barking for when the doorbell rings.

My neighbor with the non-stop barker said oh, she probably just saw a squirrel, or leaves blowing. Uh-huh. We don’t have that many squirrels, though we do have that many leaves.

My other neighbor and their dog had a good system, they trained each other to open the door on the first bark. Our backyard neighbors have a dog that usually barks twice, but at night they take their time getting downstairs to let him in, and he barks twice every minute until they get there, which can take half an hour.

Our back neighbours got their 6 kids a dog for Christmas years ago. The dog was put outside on Boxing Day and barked from 7am until 9pm. This was the routine everyday for the next four months until I called the district and complained. The barking stopped the next day. I don't know where the dog went but I do know that someone was home throughout the day and I thought it was just the cruelest thing ever to treat a dog like that.

When I called animal control I apologized for calling but that I felt sorry for the dog (and our next door neighbour had cancer and really shouldn't have to deal with this as well) and I asked animal control if there was a time limit on when to call for a barking dog and she said that they will respond if a dog is barking for more than 2 days.

We had a dachshund who was a watchdog. That is, if anyone should come by, break into our place, he would just watch. Until the arson. The day after the bombing (a long story, we were living in Manhattan), DH looked out the window and said "if the bomber was a middle aged white man, he's back." And the next thing we knew, flames were shooting up at the store across the way. We called 911, and I went down to tell the fire chief what had happened. A few hours later, two detectives knocked at our door. That's when our dog barked.

Unfortunately, I know my next door neighbor's dogs' names but not their kids' names. The wife will say, "Lola. Stop. Stop Lola. Shhh." Or "Hazel! Quiet please. Stop Hazel." All to no effect. When the husband is home, Lola and Hazel don't bark. Go figure.

One day I was out in my backyard and I could hear Lola and Hazel bark bark barking. INSIDE their house. I thought, well, holy cow! I hope they come home soon and make their dogs stop barking. Then I walked around my house to my front yard and saw that the wife's and the daughter's cars were BOTH IN THE DRIVEWAY. How in the world can they stand their dogs barking like that??

I never ever see anybody walking Lola or Hazel. Poor things. They are shoved out the door to 'do their business' wherever they wish. They put Lola right back in the house, but Hazel is tied out (because she's a pup and assumeably not completely trained yet) and they leave her out for 30 minutes or so. So she barks. Poor thing. I know she's thinking that Lola got to go into the house with the family but they forgot to take her in.