Initially I was not going to reply again to this thread as I felt that we had explained our situation and were taking steps to address the situation, which we do not want to inflame further. However in light of further comments, accusations and the notion from one poster that some how the health and wellbeing of our child warrents contacting social services (which is extreme to say the least!!) I am posting a further reply.

As noted above, now that we are aware that our dog is barking to the extent it bothers others (i.e. A complaint has been raised, although not by our direct neighbours who have children), we have taken steps to address the problem and apologise for any distress caused. This includes:

1. Shutting his dog door at night, and going outside with him on one or two occassions only to allow him to urinate. Of course, even on these occassions the dog will bark, although we are trying to train him to not do this either then or at other times of the day (however, please appreciate that he is a dog though, so he may take some time to train and may still bark a bit!).

2. He is NEVER left alone for long periods and in fact we were away this weekend (with dog), so it appears that there are other dogs in the area. Indeed one evening this week we heard a dog barking outside whilst our dog was curled up asleep on the sofa. If we knew the number of the house of the orginal complaint, we would have brought him round to their house at that time to prove it! Walking our dog in the local area, we have meet many other dog owners.

Consequently, we sincerely hope that our dog doesn't start getting blamed for any dog noise in this part of SE23. Whilst we do appreciate that a dog barking excessively is annoying (and have / are taking steps to address this problem), we think that those individuals expecting to live in South London, one road off from the South Circular should appreciate that they are unlikely to have silent evenings what with sirens, foxes, traffic, neighbours parties or music etc etc. We therefore hope that fellow se23 forum posters will not be so judgemental in their comments in the future and we hope that this matter can either be laid to rest or that individuals with concerns can address this in a friendly manner (we are friendly dog loving people!!) with us in person, rather than posting extreme or negative comments within the safety of an anonymous Internet forum.....