Sweet Koro paid a painful price for her barking one morning.

Yesterday morning, my next-door neighbor's landlord appeared in her back yard and started cleaning up debris from the trees. My rambunctious Dexter ran outside through the doggie door, jumped up on the picnic table for a good vantage point, and then started barking. I stuck my head out the door and called him to come back inside, and he did, but just then, Chihuahua Sophia ran outside and started to bark, so I called her back inside too. Then the landlord called over to me, "Let 'em bark!" He told me not to worry about it if they annoyed people. So I explained to him why I wasn't comfortable with that:

Back in the mid-'80s, I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and I had a lovely young shepherd mix named Koro, my first dog. Early one Sunday morning, before I had even gotten out of bed, a friend who was visiting for the weekend let Koro out into the back yard, where she began to bark. What followed were two sounds that are etched into my memory forever―a gunshot and a canine scream. Koro had been shot through the chest by my neighbor, a college student who likely had a hangover. At the time, I didn't even have a car, so I had to call a cab in order to rush my beloved, bleeding dog to the emergency vet. Thankfully, the bullet missed all Koro's vital organs, and she made a full recovery within a few days.

But I never did. My trust in people had been damaged―I learned the hard way, through that experience, that neighbors can do unspeakable things to a person's animals if they happen to dislike them. Not everyone loves or even tolerates dogs. Not everyone is willing to be patient as you work through dog behavior problems. And worst of all, not everyone will communicate their annoyance in a reasonable, nonviolent way.

Fast-forward to 2003, when I decided to move from Virginia Beach to Norfolk, Virginia. The qualification at the top of my list for a new house was "must be located in a dog-friendly neighborhood." So when I saw the two loud and incessantly barking dogs confined to the back yard of the house that I was considering, I knew that here was a place where barking was tolerated―just in case. I did have misgivings about buying a house from people who would force their dogs to live outside all the time, but then I realized that if I held everyone to a humane standard, I might never find a house to live in.

I've been in that house for almost four years now. A few months ago, a couple with a beagle moved into the house directly behind me. Thankfully, beagle Rex isn't forced to live his life outside, but he is left outside for a few hours every morning, and he doesn't like that one bit, so he barks his head off pretty much the whole time. At first, I considered this a curse, mainly because of my dog Dexter, who is a very "reactive" dog. I don't know exactly how he was treated as a puppy, but whatever happened to him made him acutely sensitive to sounds of all kinds, especially human- and dog-generated sounds. So if we're walking down the street and he hears a dog barking, for example, he goes into alarm mode and wants to start barking and lunging. We've been working on this particular issue since the beginning, and he's much, much better than he was before, but still, fears and compulsions learned in puppyhood die hard. So I thought, "Ugh! Just what I need―a constantly barking dog nearby to keep Dexter revved up and barking."

However, the curse turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was able to use Rex's barking as a tool to practice teaching Dexter how to control himself when those alarm bells go off in his head. Each morning, while I clean up the back yard, Dexter practices not barking and attacking the fence in response to Rex. Instead he quietly runs to me for a treat. (We call this "Nice!" as in, "Dexter, are you nice?" OK, we get pretty silly, but―hey―it works.) And the repetition has really helped enormously. Sometimes, Rex and the dog living next door to him get into barking matches, and now Dexter is actually able to just sit and listen or even ignore them instead of being compelled to bark too.

If you have a dog who is disturbing your neighbors by barking, here are a few tips that might help:

1. Exercise and lots of it, especially early. Get Fido out of the house every day, if possible, for a long morning walk. Tired dogs prefer sleeping to barking.
2. Counterconditioning. Teach Fido a behavior that is incompatible with the barking. He'll be distracted from the barking if he's following your cue to sit, come to you, lie down, or do something else that earns him a yummy treat. Eventually, this will become second nature.
3. Interactive toys and chew bones. These occupy Fido's mind and jaws and prevent boredom, which can lead to barking.
4. Minimal solitude. If you leave Fido alone for extended periods, then it's not fair to expect him not to get bored and react in some way, such as barking. Plan your schedule with him in mind. Don't spend all day at work, rush in for 10 minutes―just long enough to pour some dry, boring kibble into a bowl―and then rush back out again for a hot date. Who's more important here? Your faithful friend who would give his life for you, or some new paramour who will probably end up ditching you in a week or two anyway? Plan some at-home evening activities. And if you absolutely must leave Fido at home by himself, try to arrange for him to have some company. Surely there are other dogs in the same boat who would like to hang out with him. You can also arrange for him to have some human company―drop him off at a relative's house or even engage a pet sitter.

Whatever you do, if you know that your dog is behaving in a way that might be annoying your neighbors, do not count on the goodness of their hearts to put up with it. They can't possibly know how wonderful Fido is; in fact, they might be thinking, "Shut up, you mangy fleabag!!!" and fantasizing about doing him in. Indeed, it would be a simple matter to just toss some poisoned meat over the fence. So talk to them and see if all is well, and by all means, get cracking on toning down that barking.