I recently moved into a one-bedroom apartment that had been vacant for a while. The unit is great overall and I really like living here.
I have a two-year-old goldendoodle. He will occasionally bark when he hears something outside my door or in the hallway, but I work from home so I’m almost always there and I correct the behavior when it happens. It’s usually just a couple of alert barks.
Tonight around 7:00 pm I was having dinner with my sisters when my neighbor knocked on my door. She told me that my dog’s “constant barking” has been disturbing her newborn’s sleep and that this has apparently been going on for weeks. She also said she has two dogs and that she educated them not to bark, so I should be able to do the same with my dog.
The thing is, my dog wasn’t even barking when she knocked on the door, and I honestly don’t believe he is barking constantly. Since I work from home, I would definitely notice if he was.
I told her I would try my best to manage it, but also said that I can’t control the fact that the building’s sound insulation seems pretty poor.
I can hear her baby crying through the walls quite often, but I’ve never complained because that’s just part of apartment living. Babies cry and dogs sometimes bark.
Now the whole interaction has made me really anxious and hyper aware. If my dog barks even once, I immediately worry she’s going to complain again.
AITA for telling her that the building’s thin walls aren’t really something I can control?
ESH
Urgh, yappy dogs are the worse. So I certainly empathize with the woman. That said yeah, dogs and babies come with apartments so I get your point. So ESH. Her for complaining most likely in a rude way and you for not training your dog because yeah, even small dogs can be trained. My husband’s Dorgi is trained. Its a lot of work to train a dog to not constantly bark but its possible.
Edit Addition: Every single owner of a small dog that barks constantly claims their dog wasn’t barking “that much.” Trust me, they are, every single time.
No judgement. I suggest you audio or video record during the day, so you can prove to the landlord how often your dog actually barks in case she puts a formal complaint in.
I understand the suggestion but I have a feeling it’s going to backfire. If the dog truly didn’t bark that much, the mother wouldn’t notice. I have a feeling that dog probably barks Non-Stop.
I think with even decent insulation you are going hear a dog barking. See what you can do to train him out of this. Unless someone is jiggling your door handle, your dog shouldn’t be barking inside.
YPTA every dog owner I know underestimates how much their dogs bark or how loud they are as they get used to it
As a dog owner I fully agree with this. I always thought my dog wasn’t that loud, especially cause he isn’t one of those dogs that barks at everything. But he will do an occasional alert bark when he hears something or someone comes to the door. But once I had a newborn, I was shocked to realize that he actually is very loud. It was just that I had grown accustomed to it.
NAH
Newborns… That mom is fuuuuuucked up by sleep deprivation. Make her some soup and ask her what she needs help with. Forgive her her mania. She’s fucked up.
>Now the whole interaction has made me really anxious and hyper aware. If my dog barks even once, I immediately worry she’s going to complain again.
I think it’s very important to recognzie, that is coming from YOU, not from your neighbor.
I’m chuckling at how passive aggressive your suggestion may come across – soup is the hardest thing to eat with a newborn!
Dog owners are almost always oblivious to how much their dog barks so Im inclined to side with the neighbor
This, 100%. And I’ve met so many doodles that bark at every noise/movement. I have a golden (non-doodle) and we spent months ensuring that he does not bark at anything unless it’s truly an emergency/terrifying. It was hard work, but worth it, and we live in a stand-alone home! I’ve lived in apartments with barky dogs and it’s such a nightmare. It’s like the owners grow immune to it.
It’s just as easy to point fingers at the parents who tune out the wails and screams of their babies and children in restaurants, airplanes, and adjoining living spaces too.
It sucks, but if you’re renting you simply do not have total control over the soundspace of your living quarters. Even if you’re a homeowner, your control only extends to your property line.
Egregious noise violations should obviously be addressed, but it’s just as likely the mother got used to silence of the long unoccupied adjoining apartment. It could be she feels entitled to that relative luxury, but again, thems the breaks of rental life.
Usually I’d agree, but those post partum months with a newborn are particularly brutal, and I can absolutely understand how a sleep deprived mom to a new born could see a normal amount of limited barking as excessive.
I question how honest OP is being about being home all the time. Surely they aren’t home 24/7 and there dog may very well be barking the entire time they’re gone.
I also question the honesty of OP in stating the facts.
By my personal experience, some dog owners are absolutely defensive of their pet, and they don’t see how disruptive and annoying they can be to others, for example, downplaying how much they bark or how violent, noisy, scary they can be.
There is definitely not enough objective information here to judge.