We have been renting a house for the last 15 months. As long as everything goes well we will be moving into a house we purchased the middle of May. On Monday, February 29th our neighbor came out of his house when my husband got home and stated that he is a nice person and shouldn’t be barked at by our dogs when he goes into his backyard. My husband apologized and told him that dogs bark in general and in our neighborhood with all dogs in different yards around his house but that we would try to be more on top of them barking.

There are 3 cats in the neighborhood that run free and if my dogs see them or other dogs see them they bark. I’m lucky in the fact that I get to work from home so I hear lot’s of dogs barking at different times of the day. When our dogs go out we are either with them in the fenced in yard or watching them from an open kitchen door. There are seven houses around our neighbors house (front and back and on either side going down the road) that have dogs.

A little over a week after he spoke to my husband my dogs were out on the patio sunning themselves in the warm weather. I was in the kitchen sitting at the table with the door open. All of a sudden I hear a male’s voice barking at my dogs which in turn set my dogs off barking and growling at him. I walk outside and the neighbor is standing in our yard just staring at me and my dogs. It took me a little bit of time to call them off of him and when I got the last dog inside he said thank you. I didn’t say anything to him.

Later that evening we walked around the neighborhood with our GSD puppy meeting lots of dogs in their back yard barking at us walking by, people walking the neighborhood with or without their dogs. Not once did our puppy bark at anyone. Then when we turned to walk back to our home our neighbor came outside and stood in his front yard staring at us. My puppy positioned himself between me and the neighbor and started barking at his which I immediately told him to stop. I wouldn’t walk in front of his house but our home is at a dead end and we have to walk that way to be able to walk the neighborhood.

Yesterday in early evening my dogs are outside playing and chasing each other not barking. My neighbor walks into his yard and my dogs immediately started barking at him which we immediately started bring them inside. He yelled at us to shut up thoses dam dogs. By the time we got inside the house he was beating on our front door yelling at my husband that if our dogs bark at him one more time he was going to call the police and walked away. My husband calmly told him again that all dogs bark in the neighborhood and that we are making sure to immediately bring our dogs inside if they start to bark. He yelled back that he would call the police on us.

We have ordered bark collars but obviously my dogs don’t like him and in my opinion rightly so since he has provoked them. There’s no telling if he’s done this before to our dogs or to someone else.

Do we have any rights if he calls the police on us or we get taken to court before we can move?

Thank you for any advice or help.