Environmental Health can and will do something. They will initially send a letter stating they have recieved a complaint about dogs barking/howling at night and that if the noise nuisance continues, further action will be considered. If nothing happens after a couple of weeks (give them time to actuially stop the dogs from making a racket) then contact them again.

An officer form the Department will go out to the property unannounced and will monitor any noise at the time. If the worst ofd the noise is between 1amand 3am then someone will come out then too. You (or your friend) won't know anything about this visit to begin with. This is because if a Local Authority officer visits someone because fo a complaint, then goes straight next door, they've inadvertently given away where the complaint came from. Also, because of Data Protection legislation, they cannot legally give out details of a complaionant.

What will add weight to the complaint is if both you AND your friend complain separately. Also, if either of you can get a recording of the noise and log down events such as when they make have escaped, it's all evidence.

If the noise isn't drastically reduced at least, then the occupants can be forced to get rid of their dogs - which if you inform the breed rescue, they can contact the Council and state they would be happy to take the dogs off them for rehoming. Alternatively, the dog warden may turn up with Environmental Health (& usually the police as most people don't appreciate their dogs being taken away). It depends on how things work where you live.

Please don't sit back and do nothing. There is ALWAYS something that can be done to help.

Thank you for your informative post - it all helps. (By the way, my friend lives way over the other side of the country to me, so I cannot possibly enter a complaint alongside hers! However, the neighbour on the other side of these dogs CAN, and will.

There is no question of sitting back and doing nothing, and that is why I put up this thread as neither of us knew what the best course of action was - thanks to you people, we are now better informed.

At present, she has made tape recordings at various times of the day and evening and has played them to the owners of the dogs.........their response has been to say that they will take the dogs indoors on two evenings during the week to give their neighbours a break from the noise! They also seem to be preparing their garden in order to let the dogs loose - unless their preparations are extremely thorough this is a little worrying.

My friend now feels that she has talked enough to the dog owners, and will now take the next step of contacting Environmental Health. She was understandably reluctant to do this initially, as she is an elderly lady living alone with her dog, and was worried about repercussions. However, she cannot continue living like this so fingers crossed please for a successful outcome of some sort with no nastiness.