[wallabee4]

I have an on-going dispute with a next door neighbor who thinks my dogs bark too much. Suffice it to say, she's the only one who thinks so, and she is a control freak who told me she doesn't want me to kennel my dogs at night so that she can drive back and forth in her driveway and see if they bark. She comments to anyone within earshot that they bark 'constantly' at her and that when I said I witnessed her unloading groceries from her car back and forth right outside my fence as my dogs sat quietly and watched she says I was 'controlling my dogs' so that didn't count. (I was seated at my dining room table and gave the dogs no command, hand gesture, or whistle.) She perpetually tells me to train my dogs train my dogs train my dogs. (Yet they already know several German and English commands, hand signals, and whistles and are well trained. Compared to her dogs she keeps chained to a post so they won't leap her fence and she leaves them out all night even though they howl when they hear a siren, even in the middle of the night. And she yells 'bad dog!' to my dogs on the occasion when they do bark if another dog is running loose in the neighborhood or UPS arrives when they woof literally 2 or 3 woofs in letting me know someone is approaching my door or the garbage truck has come or UPS delivers. I'd say in one normal day my dogs might bark 3 times. And never at night. And they are never out when I am not home, not are they loneliness barkers if I am not home

Anyway, after I'd done all the good neighbor I could, I started to ignore her and now she has suddenly taken up commenting to my kids (ages 5 and 7) about our dogs whenever they are out playing in my yard. I got in her face yesterday about that but immediately realized that attention was what she'd craved.

What would you tell your kids to do when she comments to them, what would you do as a parent if she comments to your kids when you aren't around (I'm home but may not always be on the side of the house where she sits and comments from) keeping in mind that giving her any attention makes her perpetuate and ignoring her makes her perpetuate until she cracks though to get a response. As an adult, I can ignore much longer than my kids can. They shouldn't be subjected to this. I see it as a lesson in how to handle a bully, but I'm not sure what I can do--it's not like I can get her expelled to protect them.

[JudyKayTee]

I have an on-going dispute with a next door neighbor who thinks my dogs bark too much. Suffice it to say, she's the only one who thinks so, and she is a control freak who told me she doesn't want me to kennel my dogs at night so that she can drive back and forth in her driveway and see if they bark. She comments to anyone within earshot that they bark 'constantly' at her and that when I said I witnessed her unloading groceries from her car back and forth right outside my fence as my dogs sat quietly and watched she says I was 'controlling my dogs' so that didn't count. (I was seated at my dining room table and gave the dogs no command, hand gesture, or whistle.) She perpetually tells me to train my dogs train my dogs train my dogs. (Yet they already know several German and English commands, hand signals, and whistles and are well trained. Compared to her dogs she keeps chained to a post so they won't leap her fence and she leaves them out all night even though they howl when they hear a siren, even in the middle of the night. And she yells 'bad dog!' to my dogs on the occasion when they do bark if another dog is running loose in the neighborhood or UPS arrives when they woof literally 2 or 3 woofs in letting me know someone is approaching my door or the garbage truck has come or UPS delivers. I'd say in one normal day my dogs might bark 3 times. And never at night. And they are never out when I am not home, not are they loneliness barkers if I am not home

Anyway, after I'd done all the good neighbor I could, I started to ignore her and now she has suddenly taken up commenting to my kids (ages 5 and 7) about our dogs whenever they are out playing in my yard. I got in her face yesterday about that but immediately realized that attention was what she'd craved.

What would you tell your kids to do when she comments to them, what would you do as a parent if she comments to your kids when you aren't around (I'm home but may not always be on the side of the house where she sits and comments from) keeping in mind that giving her any attention makes her perpetuate and ignoring her makes her perpetuate until she cracks though to get a response. As an adult, I can ignore much longer than my kids can. They shouldn't be subjected to this. I see it as a lesson in how to handle a bully, but I'm not sure what I can do--it's not like I can get her expelled to protect them.

If you can't reason with her you can always retain an Attorney, have him/her write the neighbor a letter advising her that her comments to your children are inappropriate, children should not be exposed to adult problems and so forth. If the behavior continues you will take legal acton - of course, that might just set her off all over again.

I had a similar neighbor some years ago who was always yelling at my dogs - and my dogs totally ignored her. I did install a privacy fence and I did retain an Attorney and I did take legal action against her at which point all the neighbors came forward (people like this harass everybody) and she moved. With me she was yelling at my dogs - with other people she was yelling at their kids.

For me the absolutely fed up point came when she was watering her flowers, my dogs were watching, she turned the hose in their faces. That finished me trying to reason with or ignore her.

You also can legally arm your children with small hand-held tape recorders and advise them to turn the recorders on when she is talking to them - sometimes just seeing the recorder shuts people up. Or gets them even angrier.

You could also install a privacy fence but that becomes expensive.

I would tell your children to ignore her but I don't know if they can -

As far as barking dogs - I don't want my dogs barking at their shadows or the wind but I DO want them to bark at UPS or anybody else who is around, anyone unfamiliar to them.

[wallabee4]

What was the legal action you could take?

[JudyKayTee]

what was the legal action you could take?

I'm in NYS and I sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress and interfering with my peaceful enjoyment of my property. Sue basically for the cost of the fence, the Vet bills for my one dog's eyes following the hose incident, pain/suffering.

My Attorney spent a long time coming up with those but it did work.

During the process of exchanging legal documents the Attorney discovered very similar problems at the neighbor's last residence including an arrest for some type of assault on a neighbor over kids crossing over her front lawn.

The neighbor's homeowners insurance got into the lawsuit because of the way it was worded - some of it was alleged as unintentional - and after everything was over, all the neighbors were interviewed, the company dropped the neighbor.

[wallabee4]

I'm posting this because other readers may find it useful. After a struggle on this front today, I did call the cops and they read the dog law to her which actually spells out decibel levels and duration and that my dogs are not in violation, so perhaps having someone in authority tell her what I've been telling her will help, but I know I'm probably wrong about that...

So... today I happened to be watering my son's sunflower and asked him what would happen if we didn't water it? It would die, he answered. I said, not at first, it would take awhile, right? Yes he replied. Then I used the analogy of me having made the mistake of 'watering' our neighbor's craving attention yesterday. Now it will probably grow awhile. But if I don't water it, I don't respond to her and give her the attention she wants, it won't happen at first, but maybe eventually she will stop (and most likely move onto some other poor hapless neighbor). So then I tested my kids by yellling things like my neighbor had done to them over and over. My littler one tried to say something in response and my older one stopped him and said, 'don't water her' And they practiced ignoring me and going about their business. I cheered them. And now we have a secret code that we can use amongst us: don't water her. (I was pretty happy with myself for that one) :)

Re: JudyKayTee's story: Wow.