This is an age old problem but I think it's so sad that our neighbour couldn't come politely to our door to tell us our dog was barking constantly when we went out the other night, rather than stuff a handwritten anonymous note under our screen door folded in half with the this written on it - read!!!
No we were not aware our dog was barking because we were out.
We don't know if this is a one off occasion or he does it all the time, the note didn't say but it seems it was specifically for that one occasion because it mentioned the current time in the body of the note.
Unfortunately we missed you by about a minute and thank you for bringing it to our attention so we can do something about it. Perhaps be a bit more courteous next time - it wasn't a deliberate act on our part to annoy you.
This is all you needed to do - knock on our door the following day and say "I'm not sure if you're aware of this but your dog barked constantly/is barking constantly once you leave the house and it's becoming quite annoying".
I believe we have the right to bring it to our neighbours attention if there is behaviour that's impacting our quality of life.
We've been in our home for a number of years and so far living here (in suburbia) we've put up with constantly screaming neighbours, lights stolen from our front yard, the car broken into, other dogs barking for hours, cats treating our garden as their toilet, and who repeatedly slept on our outdoor furniture and fought in our backyard - by the way your cats are supposed to be indoors at night.
Find a balance - that's what we try to do.
Deborah, Redland Bay