<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Gosh, Dale, I think your neighbor overhearing your comments was probably a good thing. It helped him realize that you really do care and are trying hard to make Lulu a good canine citizen.</div><div>I find neighbors and noise complaints an incredibly hard topic. We have had our share of problems with our Harley. Two neighborhoods of ours ago was awful--neighbors in three directions yelled at us for walking our totally quiet hounds because THEIR dogs barked when we walked by. I was threatened by one set of neighbors when I pointed out that it was their dogs who were barking, not mine. Droolers were very helpful to me when I went all to pieces with anxiety. One neighborhood ago we had a neighbor who blasted a boat (air) horn whenever there was a single bark (he also blasted it at neighborhood parties of others,
and goodness knows what else). I count myself fortunate that none of these crazy neighbors never did more than bark themselves. Our current neighborhood is great--lots of dogs bark, teenagers scream and yell at their parents, motorcycles roar (It is not considered a high class neighborhood, but we LOVE the tolerance levels). So this is a post that is commiseration but no suggestions. Hang in there. On an optimistic and totally unexplainable note, Harley (who used to have separation anxiety and barked when I wasn't home far too much) simply "got over" the problem about 3 months ago for no apparent reason--at age 9 years old and after living with us for SIX years. It finally dawned on him I was coming back each time I left. After six years....(Well, he did have seven different homes in his first 3 years before he landed with us, but still...) So time may conquer all. Er, I suppose that is always true one way or
another...er. </div></div></body></html>