I would guess it is because you are used to it.
Growing up every time a relative would visit they would ask “how can you sleep with all that train noise going on all night long?” and we would all look at each other and say “what train noise?”. We were not right next to the train (maybe half a mile away) and we truly never noticed you could hear it at our house.
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Yeah no. The property I lived on for 5 years had seasonal people who came in to show at WEF and not one person even the dressage queens who complain about everything never complained about the dogs. The farm pig tho that was another story 
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It’s not a typical or generalized reaction but specific to our situation here. That’s why I asked for input. It’s very quiet other than the usual rural noises that have not bothered us, with few distractions. That’s why I moved here. I’ve done this at other farms with neighbors with dogs and even my own dogs with no issues.
Forget that they’re dogs for a minute.
Would you have the same “feeling” if your neighbor was cutting firewood? Driving an ATV? Mowing with a large mower? Baling hay? Working on vehicles with pneumatics?
The horses need to be desensitized to strange sounds, period. Also, sudden sounds. This is something every horse that comes to you for training needs to learn, you just get to practice it every day (which means they should be better for it, not worse!). If every single horse you have in has this same visceral wild fear, I’m telling you flat out - it’s you, not them.
People are allowed to make noise on their own property, particularly 500 feet away from yours.
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For me, when a horse is scared and running you over, I carry a dressage whip. If they don’t find me important at first, they should and they will. Rope halter or chain shank to get their attention quickly if they try to bolt. Then, while the noise is still ongoing, I occupy their brains. Yield the hindquarters, backing, yield the front, walk a few steps and stop expecting they stop with you. Take their mind off the sound and place it on you.
Similar but slightly different for ridden. Shoulder in, or small figure 8. I might get a startle from the sudden sound, but that’s normal and not to be reprimanded. It’s the fixation and the bolt/duck that gets them put to work mentally.
It’s the same as literally anything else you’ve acclimated a horse to. This is no different.
It is not relevant if this guy is operating legally or illegally. The problem and what to work on is the same.
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Feed treats when the barking starts up? Play barking dogs on your phone while feeding? Getting fed off a 4 wheeler helped one of ours overcome a phobia… half kidding, half not. If you can’t reduce the barking then make the barking work for you…maybe they need more barking that they can attach to a verified critter. Get a chihuahua or dachshund and proudly return trained horses acclimated to dog barking!
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Since the application is in process, I would push hard through the official channels. Attend every hearing and round up as many like-minded neighbors to do the same. I would focus on increased traffic, noise pollution, and waste management.
Says someone a little sleep deprived from the intermittent cacophony of barking throughout the night from a private kennel next door. That’s what I get when I try to sleep with my windows open.
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Yes. Get the government to do their job. After all, the kennel isn’t currently legal.
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So she gets the kennel shut down and the neighbors lose their livelihood because her horses are snowflakes and can’t take a little barking? That’s really going to help her relationship with the neighbors. I’d be more sympathetic if the dogs were attacking or running the fence but it sounds like they aren’t that close to the fence. Might talk to the neighbors about getting one of those ultrasonic bark inhibitors. Otherwise, learn to handle your horses and suck it up.
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Of course your local zoning regulations will be a big factor, but where I live a business kennel (not the same as a person’s private kennel for their personally owned dogs) has fairly strict licensing requirements outside of commercially zoned areas because a business kennel is considered a noise nuisance. So for me, if someone was trying to get a license for such a business in my residential / agricultural zoned neighborhood and I was opposed I would be filing noise complaint after noise complaint. I don’t think anyone in government would really care the noise was bothering my horses so I would focus on how the noise was bothering me.
Certainly the neighbor running this unlicensed kennel might very well be upset but that’s the risk people take when they operate unlicensed businesses that are known nuisances.
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I have not scrolled back to the top (the forum is being difficult for me today), but didn’t the OP say that the neighbor had an unlicensed dog day care?
In my part of the world a dog day care seems to be different than a kennel. There are dog day cares opened in residential neighborhoods.
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In my part of the world, dog daycare is a kennel. Likely because dog daycare here is almost always combined with dog boarding. While I know of a few in residential areas, the licensing is different as it’s an exception in zoning.
AFAIK, my entire county is under both a leash law and a noise ordinance. But one county over is not. Just an example how local zoning regs may be the determining factor on how OP may proceed, as I started my previous post with. Either way if the business is not yet approved, OP can certainly bring her concerns about noise to the local authorities.
In my area, a licensed kennel or even personal pets in a residential area would be subject to noise ordinance. So if a neighbor’s dog(s) were barking more than the law allows, neighbors could complain and the police would respond. Same with loose dogs.
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In the OP, she states that the daycare was illegally opened 2 years ago but that the owner was in the process of getting the necessary permits so the operation hasn’t been shut down. To me, this implies that kennel itself isn’t illegal just that the owner neglected to get the necessary business licenses or permits. Since he hasn’t been shut down, it seems that the permitting process is just a formality.
Then she states that barking is “heard” at her property. No mention of dogs running or charging the fence at her horses. No mention of any distance between the dogs and her property. No mention of dogs barking 24/7. She just “hears” barking and believes it has caused her horses to spook but has no proof. If she can hear barking, I’m sure her neighbors can hear and perhaps smell horses. She says she runs a breeding operation so I imagine there are stallions nickering or squealing at mares, mares squealing at stallions and nickering after foals, etc. Maybe hearing the horses sets off the dogs barking.
This is a two way street. If she starts complaining about the dogs, her neighbor can file similar complaints about her horses. Sounds to me that she’s being a snowflake and needs to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around her, to learn how to handle her horses and to learn to get along.
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Not necessarily. I personally know of a small industrial type business that operated in a location not zoned for his business type for years until a new neighbor complained about the noise and the authorities declined to make a zoning exception. It was a long drawn out process.
I think it’s unlikely any authorities will be swayed bc OP’s horses may or may not be disturbed by the noise, but if what’s happening is the kennel owner is trying to get some sort of zoning exception then OP is well within her rights to object based on the noise being a nuisance to her enjoyment of her property.
It really would benefit OP to become familiar with the zoning and permitting regulations in her area.
As an example, while my horses and the neighbor’s cows may produce noises and smells authorities won’t take action on any complaints as we are zoned for agricultural use. Same for noisy tractors, crop dusting planes, etc. But dogs are not covered under the agriculture zoning. Nor would industrial type businesses that produce noise and smells.
I couldn’t complain about a dog randomly barking here and there, but continuous barking or barking after a certain time at night is not allowed per the law. The same rules apply to shooting what sounds like heavy artillery. Shooting is allowed, but rapid reload shooting exceeding one hour is not nor multiple shots after dark etc.
Perhaps OP lives in a lawless or un zoned area and there’s nothing she can do OR perhaps there are rules and regulations that may apply to this situation. As long as OP herself is within the law then I don’t see why she should be criticized for pushing for the laws (if they exist) to be enforced?
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I’m not sure it would be unusual to be opposed to a dog kennel neighbor. Nextdoor is full of complaints on listening to neighbors’ individual dogs bark. An entire kennel can be deafening.
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Yes. Find out what the permitting and planning/zoning regulations are, the requirements for an exception to zoning, which is most likely what the kennel operator is applying for, and see what you can do. Generally, and these things vary widely from place to place, an exception to zoning is denied when neighbors object enough, or enough neighbors object, or adverse effects are seen or anticipated. So, find out what the rules are, and what you can do about it.
It may be that this particular county, planning board, or whatever will automatically assume that the kennel or whatever has or will have no adverse effects if no one speaks up otherwise.
By the way, an exception to zoning, or a “special exception,” means that the kennel or whatever is not permitted in that zoning. The owner may apply to get an exception to be allowed to do the whatever anyway.
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Barking dogs can be incredibly annoying - I get it. It’s hard to understand, though, how the horses wouldn’t acclimate. My property is relatively narrow, and one of my neighbors has small and yippee dogs. That house is close to my property line, which is where my riding ring happens to be. I have occasionally had to deal with one of her dogs running up to my fence line to bark while I am riding. We just work through it, and my horses learn to listen to me and ignore the dogs.
I’m sure the situation would be different if the dogs were showing actual aggression, but it’s hard to imagine why horses would repeatedly be so freaked out by dogs barking.
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I think the OP is more intent on using her horses’ reactions as an excuse to try to shut the neighbor’s daycare down rather than asking for genuine recommendations on how to acclimate horses to barking dogs.
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Far less experience here than you or others but haven’t seen this suggested so bear with me…does the layout of your property allow you to put mares and foals on the other side of the foaling barn? Sounds like mares spinning into newborn foals happens because they are closer to the fence where the dogs are and the sound surprises them…anyway just a thought, if it’s an option, even if it takes moving or changing your paddock fencing it might be worth it for your peace of mind, assuming the neighbor gets his permit.
what i would do is elicit someone with a dog that barks on command (my working dogs all do this) and have them come over for sessions with the horses. I’d put a couple of horses in a nice safely controlled pen or paddock and have handler amp up the dog(s) while feeding a nice wonderful flake or two of really yummy alfalfa. I’d have the handler animate the dog as much as possible, for as long as possible. If there was anyway to have the dog go from agitated to happy barking that’d be a plus. My thinking on this is that if the horses can see the dog interacting in a happy way with a person, a friendly person who may even feed them a carrot with the dog on a leash along side, that they will have an easier time mentally visualizing a good dog vs a pack of wolves in the bushes ready to come and eat them.
Prove to the horses that the dogs are harmless to them. Let them see for themselves. Does not have to be those actual dogs, but a similar size (close to same size of bark) would be good. AND IF you can get the neighbor to cooperate, it would be even better. In the long run …if the neighbor becomes invested in this MUTUAL training event, you could have a good thing going on there. It will be good for the dog-guy to teach his dogs horse-manners too you know!
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