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Asking someone to change their routine because of your own pet’s behavior is a bold move no matter how you slice it.

A dog owner had been walking her usual morning loop during back-to-back heatwaves, only to have an entitled neighbor request she reroute entirely because of barking.

The biggest problem? The neighbor’s dog was the one doing the barking, not hers.

Add in some lingering neighborhood friction over a garbage can dispute, and the whole situation started to feel a lot less straightforward than it looked on the surface.

Keep reading for the full story.

WIBTA If I kept walking my usual route?

My neighbor’s dogs bark at my dog (who does not bark back) when we walk around their house.

During heat waves I walk my dog in the morning between 5-7am when it’s still cooler outside.

Because of the weather, these morning walks have been happening more frequently than usual.

So far this year we’ve had 7 days of heatwave and now we’re entering another. I’ve started walking my dog in the morning these past 2 days.

Then came some unwanted drama with the neighbor.

Today my neighbor asked me if I can take another route. I said not really, maybe I can walk a bit in the field by their house.

There were quite a few problems with this idea.

We live on the outskirts of town.

The road their house is on has houses on one side and a field on the other. The next road over is a main and busy road.

The field has no shade. There’s shade in town and ‘their’ road is much quieter and has more trees than the main road. We usually walk down ‘their’ road, do a loop in town and come back the main road at the end, so I only walk past their house once a day.

This dog owner has quite the complicated history with this neighbor.

My history with them: we used to be friendly, I don’t like the neighbor’s husband (for no particular reason, just vibes). They keep their garbage bin on the curb.

One day a sign saying “Do not put your dog’s poop here” showed up on the can. I’ve only put 2 baggies in their bin ever but the sign soured me towards them cause it seems like such an easy fix, their fence comes right up to the curb so they would just move it 1m. (This is why I might be biased, cause this made me think badly of them.)

They also provide some additional context.

Dogs where I live: I’m not the only person that walks their dog. I’m not the only person to use that road. It’s normal to keep dogs outside here. Her dogs are mostly outside. About 4 houses of dogs on our route react to us, total.

The dog walker further defends their stance.

My motives: I really don’t want to walk in the field around their house because the weeds can have sticky seeds that take me 30+ minutes to get out of my dog’s coat. I also don’t want to walk up and down the main road for our walk, I like walking our loop, because I feel like my dog doesn’t get to stop and sniff as much on the main road because there’s not much to do there.

The neighbor also isn’t taking proper accountability for her role in all this.

But I understand that it’s annoying to get woken up in the morning (my dog woke me up at 4 today, barking at someone, but I just quieted her down and went back to sleep). But it’s THEIR dogs barking, not mine?! Why should it be my problem to solve?

WIBTA if I just ignored her request?

This neighbor really needs to get a grip.

Redditors chime in.

The neighbor deserves to take more of the heat here.

But the dog walker does need to assume a little bit of the fault, and this commenter explains why.

The neighbor has two options here.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a home buyer who was surprised to learn his neighbors were upset about him removing a fence.

This user gives the dog walker another consideration to mull over.

This whole situation boils down to a neighbor who’d rather redirect a problem than actually manage it.

Dogs barking at a leashed, quiet dog walking by is completely normal behavior, and the fix for that lives on her side of the fence, not someone else’s walking route.

Boundaries work both ways, and this neighbor seems to have forgotten that.