FJ, if your folk's neighbor is receptive to this, I would give it a try. Chances are he won't be though. If he is, give him a bag of treats and tell him to give them to the dogs when they bark at him. See what happens. It couldn't get worse.
If you actually do spy on him, make sure you are wearing a cable company or phone company uniform and have a fake mustache
Yeah, but it made me think of putting up a security camera to see what's going on. All of this happens during the day when my parents are at work and they leave the dogs out back. Obviously, if the dogs were just going nuts while my parents were home, they'd bring the dogs in. A security camera seems a bit extreme, but this person has been very hostile in just the 3+ months since he moved in. A lot of people have outright said in this thread that my parents must be inconsiderate to leave their dogs outside all day to bark at gramps. But my parents have been doing this for over 10 years. Why should they suddenly have to keep their dogs inside all day or put shock collars on them because gramps wants to garden next to the fence in absolute quiet? The dogs have as much right to be on their side of the fence as he has to be on his side.
Caucasian? Calling the cops because some dogs are barking is complete bullcrap. We need cops patrolling for REAL crime. Not for no sticking dog barks. People want to complain that cops aren't doing their job, well it's because folks like these are wasting their time with nonsense like this. Man the F*** up and ask the neighbors to bring their dogs in. If they won't, sucks for you. This is a free country by the way.
first off, this whole thread is pointless, there's not much your neighbor can do. you're making something out of nothing. what kind of damages can he prove in a civil case?
perhaps trying to prove that the dogs are a nuisance? I'm not saying that they are, just maybe what he's trying to do with a noise detector
Yeah, that was our thoughts exactly. But not even knowing how sophisitcated the detector is, it still wouldn't do much to prove the dogs are a de facto nuisance. You'd have a hard time arguing that the dogs are a nuisance in a legal sense when all they're doing is just barking at the guy when he comes to the fence. Isn't that what all dogs would do? Really, our desire to jam the detector is only half motivated by a fear of a nuisance lawsuit. The other half is just my parents being ticked off that their neighbor is monitoring them. It's just offensive.
Try to be nice (the whole "get to know the dogs thing") and if that does not work, employ a camera to see what's going on and arm yourself against his accusations.
How about shutting your dogs up? Nothing worse than going into your own backyard and having the neighbors dog bark at you. Sorry, but your parents dogs are the problem here.
im a dog owner, but i have to agree that although the old man may be overreacting, it is annoying having your neighbors dogs incessantly barking at you while you are in your own backyard. he should have talked to your parents rather than calling the cops though - thats pretty chicken****. i have a 100 lb. lab w/ a big bark, and if he is going off i will come out and tell him to be quiet. i dont leave my dog outside if i am not home (part of the reason i got him was home protection). my neighbors have a couple little chihuahuas - anytime i am out in the back yard they are barking and they dont stop, no matter how long i am out there. they will bark if my dog is out there too and my dog just ignores them. if i go to my mailbox they bark. if i go to or from my car in my own driveway they bark. it really doesnt bother me personally, but i could see how others would be annoyed.
FJ, I don't know why you're being defensive about the little dogs. Could it be that they actually are annoying and you're being too biased to appraciate it? I too advocate trying to get the neighbor and the dogs to know each other better. Your neighbor may not want to try it, and it might not work, but if he is going to file some silly lawsuit, you can say you tried to resolve the problem by acclimating the dogs. In any case, the guy will be a neighbor for awhile to come. It'd be better to de-escalate the tension and be a good neighbor than to get your back up about whatever slights the neighbor pays you. You may need to borrow dishwashing detergent from him some day. (Btw, I know it's your parents' dogs and neighbor, but it's easier to just write "you.")
I walk to work, and I pass by many yards containing dogs that bark at me while I walk on the sidewalk near the fence. I've been taking the same route for about 6 months now so I know where each "barker" lives and when they bark I tell them calmly and sternly to hush, Dog-Whisperer style. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. My point is, it gets really annoying sometimes, especially when someone is out there walking their dog, which gets every dog on the street riled up. I only pass by each dog for a few seconds, but if I was doing something right by those fences like working or relaxing I would probably ****ing snap, even though I like dogs. Bottom line, it's never a good idea to have an enemy for a neighbor. Your parents should head over there and talk to the man. Let him know that they recognize that there's an issue and that they'd be happy to take steps to ensure that everyone's happy with their shared space. Giving the guy a bag of treats to bribe the dogs with sounds like a fantastic idea to me. He should let the dogs smell him and have the opportunity to meet them in your parents' yard so that he can establish that he's dominant over them and they don't get to bark at him. Your parents might want to head over to his back yard and chat with him about what he actually does back there. If he's putting in a lot of work on a garden or something, he should be able to relax and do it without dogs in his face the whole time. In any case, if he gets to know your parents and they become friendly, the dogs might not bug him so bad. Usually this crap happens because people are afraid to talk to their neighbors. It's a lot more pleasant to live in a neighborhood where you and your neighbors can talk about problems or just chat about the game or whatever. There are steps your parents can take to reduce the annoyance of the dogs to ensure that the annoyance of having the cops called doesn't become an issue. Just saying "Well they've been doing it for ten years without anyone saying anything!" isn't a valid justification, in my opinion. Just talk to the guy.
NO IT IS NOT! Why don't you be a good neighbor and discipline your dogs/get them familiar with him. The problem is not your neighbor, the problem is your dogs barking and annoying your neighbor. Remove the dogs form the equation and everything is cool. However I don't think you should get rid of your dogs, just get them to calm down. You made this post hoping to get people to tell you to destroy, tamper with, disrupt your neighbors listening device. That is a crime man. Just chill out and handle the situation like a respectable man and silence your dogs in a normal manner.
My last tidbit of advice. Be careful at the same time. I know people who have had neighbors who had annoying dogs and then one day the dog is mysteriously dead. It is sad but those dogs most likely were positioned. Most dogs are foolish and will eat anything so a guy would put rat poisoning in a hamburger and before you know it the damage is done. It sounds far fetched but I have heard about this one two separate occasions here and twice in another country. Just be careful not to tick off someone who may be a crazy. Crazy people march to a beat of a different drum.
Of course the neighborly thing to do would be to talk it out. And my parents are very friendly neighbors who talk with everyone on the block. But the first time they hear about this "problem", they hear it from the cops. So you can understand why they don't want to deal with this crank now. I would like it if they would just be the better people and make a peace offering, but I can still understand why they wouldn't be comfortable talking to him after he created this tension. Since no one knows (or cares about) how to jam a noise detector, would it be possible to hook a sprinkler up to a motion detector? We're not willing to shock the dogs with an invisible fence, but we could live with spraying them to keep them away from the fence.
The problem here is dogs in general. They are dirty, smelly, and mostly stupid animals. In the ancient times they were looked at as scum, like pigs are now. I don't understand the obsession with dogs.
