Zoey is relatively quiet when she's in the backyard with us, however one of our neighbour has 4 small dogs- the Shi tzu / small terrier types. Most of the time, he leaves them in the backyard unattended, and we've never seem him walk them once.
When Zoey was a few weeks old and would go in the backyard to do her business, if she was too close from our neighbour's fence, the dogs (especially one of them), would bark incessantly at Zoey. It scared the hell out of her, and we'd have to bring her in the front lawn to get her to do her business.
However, now she's not scared of them anymore. Instead, she'll run up to the fence, dogs there or not, and will bark first. Of course, when the dogs are around it just sets them off and neither Zoey of these dogs will stop barking.
It makes me very upset because I know that Zoey was fine until these dogs traumatized her, and now I have to deal with it because my neighbour isn't responsible enough to exercise his dogs and train them properly. If he's around and his dogs bark too much, he's either smacking them or yelling at them. The dogs bark at anything too close to the fence, either pedestrians, me, or my dog.
When I try to get Zoey to stop barking, she will just run away from me and will find a way to run back to the fence and bark more. I can use recall but sometimes she's so focused on them that she won't listen at all.
These dogs make me angry to no end. The only solution seems to be that I need to get Zoey to stop barking and stay away from the fence so they don't get set off. We never go outside without supervising Zoey.
Any idea? Keep in mind that Zoey is extremely excitable, and if I try to approach her she will run away from me.