BarkingDogs.net

Go to the index for this article

Go back to page one of this article

Page Two of a seven-page article:
How to persuade your neighbors to quiet their chronically barking dogs

What to Say

In your initial visit with a dog owner of whom you have no knowledge, statistically speaking, you are most likely to find yourself face-to-face with a malicious or recalcitrant owner. Nonetheless, for strategic reasons, the first time you go to the dog owner's home, you need to assume, or at least behave as though you believe, that the dog is barking simply because the owner is uninformed.

Therefore, when you first visit the owners in their home, you should go to them in a spirit of polite comradeship and attempt to enlist their cooperation in a friendly way that will give them a sense that you all are working together to solve a problem. That way they can feel good about complying with your request that they take responsibility for their dog.

You never know. It may be that the dog next door is barking simply because the people he lives with lack the information they need to quiet the animal. With that in mind, at some point in one of your meetings, you may want to provide them with the following information:

• First, make sure that they know that their dog is barking in a problematic fashion, and that the people in your family are suffering as a result.

• Also, inform them that their dog can be quickly and easily bark trained. You may also want to provide them with a printout of A quick explanation of how to bark train your dog and/or A detailed examination of the process of bark training your dog.

• Provide them with complete information about electronic collars, which you can print out from this website.

While you are at it, refer the dog owners to the yellow pages for a listing of professional dog trainers in your area who can answer their questions and walk them through the process of quieting their dog, should that prove necessary. Or better yet, select one of the trainers yourself and visit with him to discuss bark training, but be careful. Not all dog trainers are competent, and the last thing you need is for a phony to come in, fail with the neighbor's dog, and then try to cover his incompetence by telling the neighbors that their dog is incapable of learning. So make sure that what your local dog trainer has to say about quieting a dog is consistent with what you have learned on this web site. If he seems to know what he's doing, then provide the owners with his business card. Doing that will sometimes have a positive effect.

Also, during the course of the conversation, try to determine why the dog is barking. If the animal is an entry-seeking beckoner, calling out to be let back in the house, then you may be able to easily solve the problem by telling your neighbors about doggie doors and, perhaps, offering to pay part of the price for them to have one installed.

Finally, get the dog owner's telephone number and write it down where you can find it. Having his number could prove extremely important later on.

If you are dealing with an owner whose dog is barking simply because the human half was uninformed, then, at that point, you will have done everything necessary to bring your barking problem to an end. However, if the barking still continues on for more than a week or so, you then have to consider the possibility that you are dealing with someone from the second classification of people who keep barking dogs: The lazy and the reluctant.

Go forward to page three of this article

Go to the index for this article

This page on Persuading Your Neighbors is part of Section Two:
the Your Neighbor's Dog section of barkingdogs.net