I've had to have the cops come out and take a dog away because the owners were mistreating it. Poor thing was chained in the backyard day and night, and was starving to death. Never shut up, and rightfully so. The cops came and took it, and mysteriously that house has never gotten a replacement.

Bingo. Doing harm to the dog(s) is not only a mean thing to do, it is a very likely way of getting yourself in real legal trouble.

It's always best to just be neighborly and just ask them nicely to please quiet their dogs. If that fails, call the police or the sheriff if you're not in a town. Not 911, but whatever the local non-emergency number is. In my neck of the woods, they will warn the offending party once or twice and then they'll start writing tickets.

Edit: I just saw your post that your city requires a bit more intervention from you. That's unfortunate, but understandable. I'd just start by trying to talk to the neighbor, if you can.

Yah, I'm not really going to harm the poor little guy... Hmmm maybe I should squirt him with a hose in the middle of the night...!

If you did that to my dog, it would make you his friend. He loves getting sprayed with the hose.

Print this out and leave it at the neighbors as a hint. Petsafe
My wifes Pomeranian just in the last year has developed the nasty habit of non stop barking when let outside, we bought this and it works like a charm. The only time the dog will even yelp now is when there is a true threat such as a raccon, skunk or other wild animals venturing into the yard.

Glad I'm not the only one going through this. It's not absolutely terrible, but my neighbors have a dog that does not stop barking and howling when it is outside, which can be for hours at a time. We just bought the house this year, so I didn't want to make waves right away, so my wife and I have tolerated the annoyance. It generally doesn't start too early, or go terribly late, but if you're trying to take a nap at 3:00 and that dog is yapping, it's very annoying.

Anyway, I actually had to talk to my seller recently, and the dog came up, and it turns out that they went in front of the town court with these neighbors over this dog. They ended up in mediation. The bottom line is, my town has a specific ordinance on dogs. It reads as follows:

"No person who owns, keeps or harbors any dog shall let that dog bark, howl or cry habitually in such a way as to create a nuisance."

My wife went to the police station to get a copy of the ordinance, and they knew about our neighbors and their stupid dog. The police said we could try approaching our neighbors first, but that we should call the police if the dog continues to be a problem.

So you might want to check with your police about your town's laws, and don't hesitate to call the police on people who make their dogs your problem.

Do you have a neighborhood association that enforces behavior in the neighborhood? They're very common in TX... generally I believe they exist to make my life hell (right now they're righting with me on where I've chosen to put my DirecTV dish on my house), but when you have problems with your neighbors, they are another outlet for an anonymous complaint that will actually be followed up on.

Incidentally, we have this problem as well right now but it only happens once every 2-3 weeks or so, so I've yet to call it in. Every time it happens I say I'm going to, and then I decide the potential hassle wouldn't be worth it. I did call the police the first time in the middle of the night after 3 hours straight of barking, but the police said they couldn't do anything b/c the neighbor wasn't home to talk to (weak police work!).

In any case, other ideas I've considered, some nicer than others...

1) Throw food/raw meat over the fence -> this has been proven to work, though not for long. When the food is gone - barking resumes.

2) Open the gate to the back yard where the dogs are staying, hope they run away and never return... This one I haven't done as I have a dog myself and find it overly cruel. However, I've considered it more than once in the middle of the night when about to go crazy.

Don't do anything to the dog, it’s not the dog’s fault he’s been trained to bark by inconsiderate jackasses. Beat the crap out of the neighbor, it works great. You only have to do it once and word gets out and the entire neighborhood is miraculously rid of barking dogs. I’ve also found that when the neighbor’s dog craps on my lawn, and that pile ends up on the neighbor’s porch and they know exactly how it got there, the dog stops crapping on my lawn.

I can visualize Mike doing just that.

Just make sure he swings first so you can claim self defense.

Really, though, we went thru this a number of years ago and even signed complaints with the Sheriff's office did no good. We finally got one of these and all was good.

Scott