Today, Labor Day, my husband and I were sitting at our table looking out over the back yard, watching our dogs play. Rocky has been barking a lot, but not overmuch, it seemed to us. He barks at everything, squirrels, birds, insects, leaves fluttering in the breeze. Usually I bring him indoors when I think he's barking too much. I don't want to annoy the neighbors. I try to be a good dog owner, a good neighbor.

But then we saw the neighbors behind us looking over our fence - it's a double fence, we built the new fence inside the old fence, so there's a "zone" between the neighbors' yards and ours and our dogs aren't allowed in the zone. Anyway, a police officer was standing with our neighbors looking into our yard. Three of our dogs were facing them, but not barking, just watching. Patrick and I wondered what was going on. "It's the dogs," he said, "they're complaining about the dogs." But they didn't seem to be looking at the dogs, I thought they were looking at the plants. "Is there a stray hemp plant growing in the yard," I wondered. (Hemp is a type of marijuana, and used to be farmed here in Iowa. It's not unusual to find it growing in yards or along roadsides.)

After a few minutes the police officer walked away and Pat went outside to the driveway, knowing the police car would pull up in front of our house. By the time I walked outside, the officer and Pat were having a conversation. "It's the dogs," Pat said, "barking too much."

The officer was very polite and chatted in a friendly fashion. "Your neighbors are trying to enjoy their holiday in their garden and your dogs have been barking all morning." He offered some options. "Thin out the dogs. Two would be plenty. Try a bark collar or put up a solid fence. Keep them quiet or I'll have to come back."

My dogs are only out in the yard when one of us is home. And we bring them inside if they get on a barking rant. We don't let them just bark constantly all day or all night. I really didn't think
Rocky was barking that much, perhaps I just wasn't paying attention.

This is what I think. If you have a problem with your neighbor, you go to your neighbor and say, "I'm sorry, but I have a problem." You give your neighbor the benefit of the doubt - you allow them to fix the problem, maybe they didn't even know there was a problem. You try to work it out together. You don't treat your neighbor like a criminal. You don't go to the police first.
When you go to the police first, it creates bad feelings.

I went in the yard with the dogs and played quietly with them for awhile. Meanwhile, over in my neighbors' yard, the neighbors who had complained about our barking dogs, their little dachshund was going, "yapyapyapyapyap!"