barking at kids banging on the fence

Hi vnooch, Macleod, Ryker and Sissy,

I have three dogs and a foster dog and they all bark at people/dogs who goes by the other side of our fence. Our backyard is facing a bike path.

When you have multiple dogs, especially protective and active dogs, they tend to react altogether as soon as one of them starts barking. This is very annoying but it is hard to train them not to bark because they are bred that way.

What we have done is to put another fence inside the fence, so that our dogs can not come right next to the outside fence. This reduced their reaction pretty well.

In your situation, I am totally with you. Your neighbor should teach her kids not to provoke dogs by banging the fence. It sounds like the kids are enjoying your dogs reaction but they should learn how to handle/treats dogs and other animals in a proper way. That is parents' responsibility. If your dogs ever hurt the kids as a result of the mistreatment, it will be your dogs that will be put down unfortunately.

If I was you, I would discuss possible solutions/compromise with the neighbor in a constructive manner.

I hope she will understand your concern and cooperate.

Good luck

hi vnooch and thanks for your post,

I have had a similar problem in the past with neighbors children even setting advertising mail in the letter box on fire. I agree with kjd, if it is possible the best solution to this problem is to befriend the kids themselves and try to get them to build a relationship with the dogs and gain an understanding for why banging on the fence is such a problem. It is possible that the kids are bored and attention seeking and maybe a more constructive relationship with your dogs is a possible outlet for this boredom instead. If you feel you can trust the children after a time you could get them to come in and play fetch etc with your dogs (and close the gate carefully of course) rather than taunting them through the fence.

If this is not an option in your situation or you attempt it without much success let me know and we can work on a desensitizing routine for your dogs, however this will require a lot of time and effort so it is really a second choice for most busy people!

All the best,

How old are these kids? Throwing books and bookbags over doesn't sound like 5 year olds! You are correct, the problem is the parents. One thing you might try is to collect the books and bags and let the parents come and pick them up. It shouldn't take too long before they will stop that little habit. When the father asks you to "send them over," just tell him you feel responsible for the stuff and don't want them lost or damaged (could fall off fence or be taken by other children). Doesn't help with the screaming, but might stop the books coming. If they escalate to rocks, you definitely should call the authorities, I don't see how matters between you and the family could get worse -- they obviously do not care.

What worries me most about the situation is that those children are teaching your dogs to be aggressive. And when they bite someone, it will be the dogs who suffer, not the little brats who made them that way.

Can you afford to set up a dog yard on the other side of your yard, away from this neighbor? Then plant bushes or something so the dogs won't see the kids. I know you want to desensitize your dogs, but go back and read what you have written. Suppose you do get them to ignore what the kids are doing now. They will invent new ways to get the dogs to bark. If the parents won't control their children, and the children won't listen to you, you have to do something. And your best bet is to remove the dogs from the children.

1. I have good experience since using bark collars to stop my dogs barking at great length and volume all night. But where your dogs are being provoked, this might be rather hard on them.
2. When our local kids were kicking their football "accidentally" into my garden every day, I made a rule that I will give it back, but not till next day. That reduced the number of "accidental" entries of the ball into my garden.... I would be inclined to leave the books etc in your garden, and if the dogs chew them up, you're very sorry, but these things will happen if things are put within reach of your dogs. Or, as suggested by another correspondent, call the authorities and complain. I would NOT return the things over the fence at the parents' request. I live in Albania and we have many parents with that sort of attitude. I tear my hair out. The children who hassled my dogs did not want to make friends with them. This summer one visiting child provoked my dogs from the road. One day he was outside when I took the dogs out, off the lead, and one of them went up to him in a friendly way and he screamed in terror. I tell the children that if they don't hassle the dogs, they won't bite them, but if they hassle them I don't guarantee what might happen. Which encourages healthy respect. But that doesn't help you with your problem. Could you encourage the kids to make friends with the dogs over the fence, if their parents feel they are too young to meet the dogs in your yard? Probably not, if the kids are like some of ours. I do sympathise. At least here they don't put dogs down for biting - I got badly bitten by an Alsatian, whom the police would probably have shot if I had shown them the bite, but I didn't report it as I thought the owner would keep it in now it had bitten me. She continued to let it out. It was eventually clubbed to death by an angry neighbour, whose dog it had killed.