What do you do when a dog's barking is

annoying you? Especially if you know whose house it is and what their name is and you have their phone number?

Do you call the house in question and complain directly to them?

Or do you call another naighbour, and tell him to call the husband who is at work a few miles away, so that he can call his wife and tell her to bring the dog inside?

Some people's thought processes just amaze me...

I let Kimmy out in our back (fenced in) yard about 3 times a day, after her meals, so that she can "do her business", each time for about 20 - 30 minutes. It's too cold to leave her outside any longer, anyway. Dobermans don't handle cold well.

Sometimes when she's outside, she barks. Either, because she sees someone walk past our house (we live at the end of a dead end street, so that doesn't happen often), or when she hears other dogs in the neighbourhood bark, and she "answers" them.

So, today at about 11 AM, the phone is ringing. It was Gerry, my husband, calling from work. He told me that one of our neighbours (his back yard and our back yard share a fence) called him, and told him, to call me and tell me to take our dog inside, because other people called him to complain about the barking.

He didn't name names (pity!) but someone actually told him that our dog barks "for hours on end". You see, I wouldn't mind to much that they complain, if these people at least didn't LIE. Kimmy can't bark for hours on end simply because she doesn't stay outside for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Obviously, complaining "their dog barks intermittently for about 10 minutes and it drives me nuts" wouldn't sound so serious as "their dog barks for hours on end".

Oh, and why not call directly to me??? Why call another neighbour, so that he calls my husband, who then calls me? What did they expect from Gerry to do when he's at work, anyway?

I am annoyed. Apparently, other dogs' barking is alright. (I would guess around half of the houses around us have a dog, we're just one out of many) Our dog's occasional barking is a nuisance and has to be nipped in the bud.

I realize that I am not looking at it rationally at this point. I don't know if I suffer from some sort of "persecution syndrome", but it's been really getting to me that ever since we got our Doberman, people will frequently pass on the other side of the street when they see us, glare as they do so.

Why nobody complains about the golden retriever who spends most days all alone in the garden, barking?

Of course, when Kimmy is in our yard and hears him bark, she barks back.

I guess I feel like if she wasn't a Doberman, people wouldn't be so quick to complain. Like I said, I know I am not objective. But accusing me of letting her bark for hours on end really made me angry.