Me too. Loved the pics, she is beautiful

Thanks, do you want a job letting her out of our house a couple of times a day?

I have though about writing a letter to all the neighbours, so they know what's going on, what do you think? Here is what I have got so far:

Dear Neighbour

We have recently received a very threatening letter that we wish to inform you about. The letter suggests that if we don't stop our dog from barking, harm might come to her. We have contacted the police who can use the letter for both fingerprint and DNA evidence should it be needed. We wish the person responsible for the letter was adult enough to either speak face to face, or write asking us nicely to stop our dog barking. We will not be intimidated by this threat!

We hope that all our other neighbours don't have a problem with our dog, but as we respect you all, we intend to make every effort to prevent our dog from barking as much. However, as she is a big dog her bark is loud and there isn't anything we can do to change that. Our reason for choosing a big dog is because we've had intruders in our garden over the past 2 years and someone tried to break into the house. She does a very good job of keeping unwanted visitors away, although in reality she is a big softy.

I hope we haven't upset any of you (although one of you clearly has issues with it), but we will continue to work with her to keep her as quiet as possible.

If any harm should come to our dog, we will pursue this further and the person responsible will be prosecuted.


Kind Regards

I would feeel honoured to come and have a big cuddle with your gorgeous girl every day!

The letter is excellent and daresay that most who recieve it will be quite shocked and want to make it clear to you that they were not involved. You may well end up discovering who wrote it by elimination

I'd talk to the police before sending it, see what their advice is.

I can see the situation from both sides, though no way do I condone threatening behaviour.

My neighbour has a black lab. As soon as they go to work it starts and only stops for short periods throughout the day. It really gets wearing after a while. we can't sit out in the garden or have an afternoon nap for the noise. It isn't the dog's fault. It's the owners who only bought her to say they had a gun dog. They have no feelings for the dog at all.

We told them about it but they just think we are making a fuss about nothing. Anyway we solved the problem by letting her out to play with our three Scotties that seems to have solved the problem.

On the other hand we have three dogs of our own who are, shall we say, vocal. Having experienced next doors I am now paranoid about them making a noise. We take them everywhere with us and when we can't my daughter comes over to look after them.

The trouble is when you aren't there you have no idea of they do make.

I think your letter is good and how horrible for you to receive the letter you did. Not a nice situation to be in.

We had issues with our neighbours as they have 4 children and they were letting the older ones use our driveway/parking space as their playing field and they would scream and scream and bark at our dogs and stare in our window whilst I was eating. I asked the neighbour nicely to move her children away a few times because of the excessive noise but the last time I did it she was quite snotty and in the end, after taking advice from a counsellor, we contacted the PCSO "Safer neighbourhood team". I had written a letter and they took this round and had a word with them and things have been fine since.

Even though we have had to put up with numerous problems over the years with these inconsiderate neighbours I would not think of sending threatening letters-most rational people wouldn't do this! You would go and have a word with the neighbour to try and resolve the issue.

I don't like to hear dogs barking and the neighbours around us that let their dogs bark and bark outside, well I am afraid I do think of them as inconsiderate as the noise of other people's (or my) dogs barking isn't music to my ears!

You don't expect dogs to be "seen and not heard" but at the same time I would not be happy leaving my 2 outside when I am not there because I know they would be like yours and bark if anyone was nearby and I would not want to annoy my neighbours.

I have ME and am quite noise-sensitive and when I am not at work I have to sleep during the day and my husband works shifts so we do appreciate a bit of peace and quiet!

Your neighbours may have similar problems with needing peace and quiet during the day although this does not condone their behaviour in any way.

Thank you all for your replies, and I can certainly see the other side of the problem.

In our old house we got death threats from our neighbour. For no reason other than I asked their son not to climb into our garden without permission. He even threatened to kill our unborn child. When I asked him not to go into the garden, I was polite and I asked nicely.

I wouldn't have any problem with someone knocking on our door and asking us to try and keep the dog quiet. The last thing we want to do is cause any upset for someone. My wife is a nurse and used to work shifts, so we know that some people need to sleep during the day.

We will work on her barking, but in all honesty it isn't excessive, it's just that she is loud. The neighbours Jack Russell barks far more than our dog.

What!! The police are worse than useless when it comes to issues like this.

If someone sent me a nasty note like that, once I was sure who had sent it it would be returned to them ... but via a particular part of their anatomy that is usually only used for disposing of waste material

Your dog is gorgeous and this situation is outrageous. Dogs bark, end of. If these horrible people who send you the anonymous letter had the misfortune to be burgled and your dog barking scared off the intruders I bet they would be singing from a different hymn sheet.

That's more like it ... good letter Andy!