For some excellent advice on how to handle noisy neighbors with or without a barking dog, including the anonymous letter approach, click here:
How to Handle Noisy Neighbors and Their Barking Dogs
If you are a victim of irresponsible dog owners with barking dogs, visit BarkingDogs.net
If you live in Monroe/Union County, NC also see Ordinances and Local Contacts
If you are in a position (e.g., judge, magistrate, law enforcement, city council, county commissioner, etc.) to put an end to nuisance dog barking or to enforce noise nuisance laws but don't view the problem as serious, click here: Why Exposure to Chronic Dog Barking is So Profoundly Debilitating and here: The Deleterious Effect of Exposing People to Noise

Sunday, January 24, 2010

How Long is Too Long...

Update: I talked to my other neighbor's and they said their dog died in the early winter of 2007. That means Harley arrived as a puppy during the summer of 2007...

I've been trying to figure out how old the Annoying One is, because this will tell me how long I've been forced to listen to his barking and just when I began to slide toward the edge of noise trauma darkness.

Harley was just a wee pup of about 2-3 months when they first brought home the bundle of joy...and he was already indulging in psycho barking although he was much cuter then...visually that is; make no mistakes here - the horrendous sound that comes out of that Schnoodle was never even close to being cute, even back then. I know my neighbors well enough to know they have no dog training skills...and I know that they have no clue that they have no clue...and I knew immediately that I was in BIG trouble and began trying to calculate how long Harley would live...and if I could survive that long.

I know they didn't have him when my very first cat died on November 2, 2005, they didn't have him when I got my shelter cat in December of 2005, and I know they didn't have Harley when my other neighbor's dog died, but I'm having difficulty remembering if she died in 2006 or 2007. I just remember it was a cold and misty day, so it was either late winter/early spring or late fall/early winter. She had been tethered in their yard for about 6 years...a very sad affair and another story for another blog...and I remember my relief at her death was short lived because next thing I knew my other lovely neighbors came home from the beach with Harley. Yea. That was in the Summer of either '06 or '07.

So maybe it hasn't been 4 years that I've been being barked at. Maybe it's only been 3ish. What also makes it difficult to remember, even though the Annoyance started right in immediately, on day one, with his annoying ruckus, was that in the beginning Harley was inside quite often and so I was not always assaulted like I was later on and am now, although, believe me, if he was outside we all knew about it.

So, despite what one of Harley's humans told me when I asked him last fall how old Harley was (he said about 6 but I knew that was not true...let's refer back to Dr. Mixon's noise trauma chart about the thinking process), Harley is getting close to either 3 or 4 years old.

Either way, this barking business has been going on too long. My advice, for what it's worth in my completely batty, nervous wreck, anxiety ridden state, to anyone who has just begun to have a barking neighbor - don't wait, nip it in the bud, don't wait thinking the humans will quiet the dog because they won't, don't keep quiet so as to not ruin the neighborly relationship because if your neighbors allow their dog to disrupt your life the neighborly relationship is non existant anyway, and the longer you wait the more stressed out you'll get, and you'll become as wacked out and miserable as Yours Truly.