Two Years of Recordings, Independent Witnesses & the Council's Own Frontline & On-the-Ground Staff Acknowledging Nuisance Barking. Management, However, Requires Complainants to Possess A Penis.

In last week’s article, ‘Don't Let Yours Be 'THAT Dog': What Works, What Doesn't, and What Every Dog Owner Needs to Know About Barking’, we looked at the reasons dogs become problem barkers and what actions responsible owners – and despairing neighbours – can take to alleviate the problem.

In terms of the former, it assumed that owners, in general, would want to either avoid or address a situation whereby the latter situation become necessary i.e. the affected neighbours having to take actions to alleviate the problem.

In that article, we largely investigated barking deterrent devices – be they high-frequency collars or frequency pitch-projecting boxes. The expert we quoted made a closing point that, first and foremost, it remained a dog’s owner's responsibility to address its associated behavioural issues.

In today’s article, we’re going to address the unfortunate reality that – unlike the vast majority of we dog owners who are responsible and considerate regarding the impacts of our pets on those around us – some owners (if I may be frank and somewhat unjournalistic) really don’t give a crap about those who live around them and have to tolerate dogs that, in all honesty, they are not qualified to own.

It’s in cases like this that impacted neighbours – which includes responsible owners who wouldn’t dream of letting our own dogs destroy the peace and productivity of our broader neighbourhood – should be able to look to our local councils and their animal control departments to do what they are paid via ratepayers’ rates, to do i.e. address the problem.

Lazy, Dishonest & Mysogynistic Council Culture As Problem Force Multiplier As Opposed to Solution Provider

But when the Council in question is as deliberately in denial, as lazy and as recalcitrant as the dog owners in question . . . and have an especially unhealthy misogynistic culture when it concerns their ratepayers – they become a multiplier force for the problem rather than the solution they are actually paid to be.

Such is my own battle with New Zealand’s Masterton District Council, which – having long since run out of my own efforts to quell neighbouring nuisance barking – I have been appealing to for the past two years for assistance . . . the assistance my monthly rates fund them to provide. But that they’re not providing.

So, readers . . . unfortunately this article isn’t going to provide you with the solution to this sort of problem – a problem that I hope will be very much the exception rather than the rule for most of you. But I will offer you one core element of advice in any situation like it: Document EVERYTHING. If yours is like the local council in question, you’ll find that ensuring you have the facts to hold up to their untruths is your first important action. Particularly if you have to pursue legal action either against the owner or the council.

‘Nothing to Hear Here,’ Says Gordon Crawley, Whose Animal Control Personnel Have Already Admitted the Problem on Multiple Occasions . . . While Doing Nothing to Solve It

On Friday (i.e. May 8) Gordon Crawley, Team Leader of Masterton District Council's Animal and Bylaw Services, emailed me to advise that he was simply “closing” my two years’ worth of repeated nuisance barking complaints.

Ironically, as I was attempting to concentrate on reading his email half an hour after its 1.53pm arrival in my inbox, I was prevented from doing so by the continual agitating barking of the dog he emailed to tell me wasn’t a nuisance barker.

The second audio recording above captures a sample of what I can hear from my office and is recorded between 2.30pm and 3pm i.e. as I tried to concentrate on Crawley’s “not a problem” email and some other work that I also couldn’t focus on with said highly agitating barking volleys and howling going off anything between every 10 seconds and few minutes - and that goes off most days for hours, that is, on a daily basis, in the near background.

When I say “in the near background”, it’s actually hardly the background at all. The recording you hear is taken on a tiny handheld, mono-directional device designed for office use . . . so the recording isn't exactly reproducing the full volume or indication of proximity and sharp and jarring nature of the actual noise type and levels.

Maybe Crawley and Co. at the Masterton District Council don't consider it a "nuisance barker" because there are gaps of a few seconds or minutes in between each volley in the four- and five-hour-plus barking marathons . . . but I would challenge them to want to work within close earshot or live beside that for a full afternoon and half the evening every day of their lives.

To get that picture, you really have to listen to the full 15-minute sample, and especially the latter half. And that recording wasn't even a particularly "bad" day . . . it was just what was randomly going off as Crawley's "not a nuisance barker, so I'm closing the case" email dropped in. The email that indirectly but very effectively indeed, calls me a liar.

Further, the dog – a spaniel, many sub-breeds of which are known for their unprovoked barking and especially keen hearing – is fascinated by the sound of anything I do in the entire rear half of my house: close a cupboard, put a pot on the counter, open the window to let the shower steam out, or flush the toilet. It stands against the fence neighbouring my property and just barks. And barks. And barks. And barks. And stops for a bit. And barks again. And stops for a bit. Then barks again. Then repeats the cycle all over again for the next hour. Or four. Like today . . . when it started somewhere around 2pm and is still going as I type this article at 7.44pm. And yes, it's owners are home. They usually are. They just don't care.

As far as actually enjoying my beautiful park-like back garden, I don’t . . . any more. Since the dog arrived two years ago. It already sounds – from my house – like it’s in my actual back yard, without me having to be out there, essentially with it.

And that’s a big part of the three-pronged problem, with regard to where it barks:

1)    The dog barks right up against MY fence – as close, if not closer, to my house than to the owner’s house.

The owners have been observed – not just by me but also by my cleaner, who provided a named, independent witness statement to Gordon Crawley (cc’d to all the Councillors, who are happy to collect their annual stipends to represent ratepayers they don’t bother to represent) – consistently taking no action, even though home, to do anything to quell it.

She wrote:

"I was gardening in the rear yard of (my address) from approximately 9.15am. The spaniel at the neighbouring property (their address) was barking continuously for approximately 15-20 minutes for no apparent reason. It was just sitting in the sun and barking. The owners were visibly present in the house throughout the barking. No attempt was made to stop the dog barking until they eventually let it inside."

Her statement remains completely unacknowledged.

(Half the problem is that their dog is closer to ME than to THEM. So if you’re an inconsiderate ass-hat, why would you care? Keep reading.)

And per my own January 26 email to the Masterton District Council's animal "control" officer Garry Hardgrave and every Councillor:

"I went out and looked through the fence — the panels are staggered and I can see through them if I put my face up to the fence — and the owner was calmly doing her gardening just metres from this dog, as the dog faced into MY property going off its face without ceasing for many minutes at that point. The dog's owner was completely unmoved by the ongoing, loud, incessant, aggressive/distressed barking of her own dog within metres of her. Even if perhaps she is deaf, she could SEE the dog's behaviour — she was that close to it and doing nothing."

2)    Crawley and his “animal control” personnel claim to have “monitored” the property and have asked “the neighbours” to fill out “barking logs” and that the "few they got back" indicated it wasn't a problem barker.

Well, have a go at that second-to-top audio at the beginning of this article . . . and again, listen all the way through, especially to the second half, and see what you reckon about living with that sounding as much or more like it's coming from your own back yard as it does the owners' property. And listening to it for hours and hours and hours . . . EVERY. BLOODY. DAY. Then imagine being a writer as your profession.

Here are just some of the reasons that the other neighbours whom Crawley, Hardgrave or whoever they selected for their apparent visitations (assuming they actually did, and assuming they visited any that are actually within geographic earshot of the dog - see Point 3) might either be not troubled by its barking or might be unwilling to make an issue of it.

This is hardly an exhaustive list, but - among other highly pertinent considerations - it does serve to highlight the fact that what is greatly disturbing to one resident's situation and circumstances might be just "background noise" to another's:

• They simply don't want to fall out with a neighbour in a very small and tight-knit cul-de-sac community in a tightknit regional town.

• They're not home during the day — the prime barking hours (although certainly it also barks unrestrained into the evening regularly).

• They probably don't work from home.

• They might be home but have TVs, radios, or general household noise that masks it . . . and certainly that is the case with their immediate neighbours, who are a multi-generational, boarding-house style abode with multiple young kids.

• Some might have dogs that also bark (as is the case with the above household; listen to the recording at the bottom of this article) and don't want to draw the Council's unwanted attention to it.

• **** The dog isn't barking directly at their fence line the way it barks at mine. ****

• (Closely related to the above bullet point, and to Point 3 below) They can't hear it as sharply from the street frontage as I can from MY back yard . . . because the dog, to all intents and purposes, effectively IS in MY back yard.

• Filling out a council bark log and putting their name to it feels like more trouble than it's worth - both in terms of the physical and logistical effort, and in terms of its lack of anonymity.

• Some may not have even received the log, or may have received it and binned it without reading it.

And here's perhaps the most telling reason of all. The audio recording at the bottom of this article (please scroll down and have a good listen) was taken mid-morning on the day I'm publishing this article i.e. today, Sunday, May 10. It's a recording of the dachshund in the above-mentioned multi-generational house over the back - the other most immediate neighbours of the spaniel property - standing on that neighbouring property's upstairs balcony and barking unabated out over the neighbourhood.

If you've got an uncontrolled barking dog yourself, you probably don't want to alert the local council to the broader problem, do you?

While you're back in listening mode, pop back up to the top of this article and have a listen to the first audio recording . . . that's the canine cacaphony that the spaniel appears to be actually attempting to get rolling . . . with, in that recording, the new neighbours' two dogs happy to oblige it - as you can clearly hear. Not that you'd want to.

But remember, according to Crawley and Hardgrave, I'm imagining all this. Maybe it's actually me doing the barking. All three of them at once. I'm very talented like that.

Notwithstanding, let's look at my rights as a ratepayer, property owner, and resident. Let's address whether I have a right to peaceful enjoyment of my property . . . which is indisputable:

Under the Local Government Act 2002, councils have a statutory duty to promote community wellbeing. Under the Dog Control Act 1996, Section 55, a dog owner commits an offence if their dog is found to be a nuisance — defined as causing a nuisance by persistent barking or making a noise that is disturbing to people in the neighbourhood. The council has the power to issue a Nuisance Notice and, if not complied with, seize the dog.

Masterton District Council has done neither despite my equally persistent and consistent, evidenced and documented - and extraordinarily patient - complaints.

Crawley advises that barking logs were delivered to neighbouring properties and that "the few responses we received indicated that the dog you complained about was not a nuisance barker."

Per my points above, the neighbours in this small, tight-knit cul-de-sac — accessed via a private driveway — may simply not want to fall out with one of theirs. That's New Zealand neighbourhood culture and it's entirely understandable. But it does not make the dog less of a nuisance. It just means fewer people - or maybe no-one - in that tight little community, wants to speak up about it.

And again, many of these neighbours are not home during the day. The dog's prime barking time is mid to late afternoon.

Those who are home may have televisions, radios, children, or generally noisier households than that of a professional writer working in silence. As per my bullet points above, the most immediate neighbour is a large multi-generational household with multiple young children – just by way of example.

Their tolerance of this situation is their choice and their circumstance. It is not mine.

And crucially — none of them share a fence line at the exact point where the dog barks, at the far end of a long private section, pointed directly into their property in response to their movements inside their own home.

And again - with reference to the sample from the spaniel's other immediate neighbour's barking-on-the-balcony dachshund (recording at bottom of article), if you've got your own barker, you don't want the council hanging around, do you?

Which leads me to the council staff's most dishonest treatment of the matter, of all.

3) Crawley, Hardgrave & Co's Most Dishonest Omission of All: Where the Dog Is Barking and Where They're 'Monitoring'

Now let's address the other element in the equation regarding (a) why the neighbours who apparently aren't troubled by the spaniel's incessant barking are (apparently) far less troubled by it than I am, and (b) why Crawley's "monitoring" claim is, effectively, bogus:

The house in question is at the end of a small cul de sac with a very long driveway down from the street which opens into a large section . . . at the very end of which the dog parks itself and barks merrily . . . at nothing or at me and my activities inside my house. The dog is barking far closer to my house than it is to the street, where said "monitoring" activity has supposedly taken place.

In other words, the council’s “monitoring” activities – if they genuinely have taken place or have taken place at any relevant time – are, the geography of the street and the sections, would distinctly suggest - intentionally designed to NOT capture the barking . . . or the actual impacts of it on ME and MY home.

To be even more clear:  the dog barks down the end of a property that, in turn, is at the end of a long driveway, and that CAN’T EVEN BE SEEN FROM THE STREET (AND MOST CERTAINLY NOT HEARD AS SHARPLY AS IT CAN BE HEARD FROM MY PROPERTY BECAUSE IT’S THE SAME AS THOUGH IT WERE GOING ON IN MY ACTUAL BACK YARD).

I know that sounds incredibly repetitive, but after the numerous times I've pointed out the obvious to the council staff, it either still hasn't sunk in . . . or, in reality, continues to be strategically ignored.

Yet, their own front counter staffer (among others) have clearly recognised the issue. When my phone and email-based communications continued to be ignored and I'd gone in to the Council buildings to make an in-person complaint, staff member Sandy Hewitt exercised due logic and stated it plainly:

She asked me to sketch the lay-out of the properties, and show the location from which the dog barks. The moment she looked at it, she said: "The team need to come around and stand in YOUR back yard. That's the only way they're going to understand what's going on."

So to Messrs Crawley and Hardgrave:  If you're not even "monitoring" in the affected or directly affected location, all your supposed "monitoring" doesn't mean jack shit. But, I suggest, you are fully and conveniently aware of that.

As I've pointed out to you numerous times - or attempted to - In my back yard, and in my house, with the fenceline it shares directly with the back end of the spaniel’s property, the impact is intense, agitating, de-focusing, and inescapable. The effect is no different than having the dog in my own back yard. Except that I have no control over it.

So, yes indeed, the logical thing for the Council to do is to come TO MY PROPERTY and go into MY back yard – so that it can be assessed for its real-time impacts on MY LIVING ENVIRONMENT:

From: editor@consumeraffairswriter.com  
Sent: Friday, 30 January 2026 12:02 pm
To: 'Terri Mulligan' <terrim@mstn.govt.nz>; 'Animal Services' <animalservices@mstn.govt.nz>
Subject: RE: Further recording from my office window - attached

Please feel free to come down my driveway and into my back yard.

It’s currently stopped – but if you go into my rear garden, that will almost certainly set it off again, and you’ll see exactly what I’m dealing with.

My office is down the driveway, but if I’m on the phone or elsewhere in the house and don’t hear you knock – just come onto the property anyway. You are most welcome, as it will help you understand the situation better than from around the street side.

Jordan

I’ve made that request, to multiple parties within the council, to the point of insistence, on multiple occasions this past two years. All have been ignored.

Why?

When Dealing with the Masterton District Council, Balls Aren’t Enough; A Complainant Also Needs A Penis

Because then it would completely dissolve the insulting inference that I'm some woman (who for that fact alone is) not to be taken seriously and is making it all up.

Garry Hardgrave has, in fact, been here and into my back yard once, you see . . . when he addressed the barking complaint by the BLOKE next door regarding another dog that troubled HIM i.e. said MALE neighbour (and which Hardgrave addressed for HIM promptly on the spot on that day).

When Hardgrave was here, he heard clearly that the dog at the property next door to ME was just as much of an issue to me as the one my MALE neighbour was yelling at that was an issue to HIM.

What was the difference? Nothing other than the gender of the complainant.

And the easiest way to dismiss the female complainant is to ignore her multiple requests - verbal and in writing - to come to where the problem and its impact can be genuinely and honestly assessed.

The numerous call centre operators (when I’ve called on weekends or after hours) and the council's front counter staff (when I’ve gone into the council following the realisation of fruitlessness regarding all the recordings they have told me to make and all the emails on which I’ve sent the multiple recordings attached, none of which have ever even been acknowledged) have proactively themselves made the point that their Animal Control team needs to come into MY back yard to get the true picture.

The last time that suggestion was made (proactively) was by - as you read above - the council's front counter service staffer Sandy Hewitt, on April 24 . . . but it has resulted in nothing other than Gordon Crawley’s vindictive May 8 “case dismissed” email.

Or was the vindictive email triggered by my Official Information Act request, Crawley?

Or, more likely, both annoyed you . . . and so you simply "case dismissed" me . . . because you can.

There is no question in my mind that if I were a man making these complaints, this problem would have been solved long since. As was my male neighbour's . . . on the spot.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that on my recent recorded call with a staff member named Janet, she observed rightly:

"Your complaints should be taken as seriously as everyone else's."

You're right, Janet. But I bet the cowardly and dishonest culture there doesn't facilitate your communication of that to management.

Why Has A Problem That Was Known & Admitted to Be A Problem Suddenly Become Not A Problem And Apparently Never Has Been?

Ironically, the very first time I called the Council about the dog, it wasn’t because of the barking per se. As an animal lover, it was (and is) the frustrated sound of the dog’s barking that had caused me concern that it was possibly tied or caged and that welfare issues might be the root cause.

Actually, Hardgrave did claim back then to have visited the dog’s owners on two occasions in full recognition that it was a problem, but for reasons best known to he and Crawley, now apparently the dog has never been a nuisance barker at all. Even though Hardgrave has heard it with his own ears. Just as he'd heard the dogs that were a problem for my MALE neighbour.

In fact, all parties - including the owner - readily admitted to it back then . . . and it's gotten worse since and certainly not better.

The neighbours gave Hardgrave the story (which he bought hook, line and sinker as he relayed to me in a “the resolution is imminent” manner) that this then-new addition to the neighbourhood was actually owned by the adult children of the property owners and would be being exported to them “when they have gotten settled" in their new overseas home. "Six months maximum."

After six months had long passed but the nuisance barking hadn’t, and my frustrated pleas to the council for help continued, Hardgrave's and the owners' story changed: Yes, we know it’s a problem, but we’re hiring a dog behaviour trainer to address the issue.

The dog has never gone anywhere.

The "animal behaviour trainer" never happened either . . . or if it did, that animal behaviour trainer whose existence I doubt, should give them their money back . . . but again, I don’t believe a word of it. But it suited Hardgrave to buy the tale, and from that time onwards, Hardgrave's own story has changed simply to accusing me of fabricating the whole barking problem in its entirety.

Go figure. The owners themselves admitted there was a barking problem — enough to claim they were addressing it with an animal behaviourist — but now the illogical, arrogantly dismissive, and openly disingenuous Gordon Crawley tells me the dog is not a nuisance barker? Crawley's direct report, Garry Hardgrave's, own previous visits produced admissions from the owners. he accepted those admissions, conducted no follow-up, and now Crawley is using the absence of a result as evidence that there is no problem.

As I pointed out to Hardgrave (on a rare occasion when I was put through) and before he hung up on me two months ago when I called him cap-in-hand to "PLEASE HELP BECAUSE I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE" and he conveyed his new "you're making it all up" position, who the hell do they think is doing the barking on the multiple audio recordings I’ve been emailing he and Crawley and they’ve arrogantly and misogynistically been ignoring . . . along with their equally arrogant, unconcerned and impotent Councillors?

‘That Street Is A Known Nuisance Barking Trouble Spot’

Those were the exact words spoken to me by the security service contractor that the Masterton District Council hires to carry out its after hours animal control duties on one of my calls (weekends are the dog's most favourite of all barking marathon times).

When I’d given the usual amount of complex detail (regarding how any monitoring needs to be conducted from MY property and why) to the after hours call centre operator on one particular occasion, the  operator had recognised that somehow this detail didn’t seem to be being properly conveyed in my calls to date, or they weren't actually being attended at all, and suggested they put me through to the security bloke to explain the geography directly.

Said security bloke sounded agitated that he was being asked to go and address what was – in his words (PULL THE RECORDING AND LISTEN, CRAWLEY) a known nuisance barking trouble spot. As in, why was he being asked to address something the council damn well knew had long since been a problem in general rather than leaving it to him to do after hours when his powers were more limited?

To be equally noted, is that I HAVE ONLY EVER COMPLAINED ABOUT ONE DOG. So to the Council's gaslighting specialists, Crawley, Hardgrave & Co. . . . it's NOT just me that's complained, IS it?

Three Anti-Barking Deterrent Boxes Later

In an April 24 email that I know was received and forwarded to Crawley, I attached the receipt for three barking deterrent devices that I’ve purchased and had located at my fence line and that – despite the general efficacy of those devices – the spaniel is so determined to bark regardless thereof that it just ignores (these devices emit a high-pitched frequency only audible to the canine ear).

I also had the retailer, who is herself an experienced independent dog trainer write a useful explanation in a letter intended for me to forward to Masterton District Council (which I did and, of course, it too was ignored), regarding how barking deterrent collars are an inexpensive and very effective solution that the dog’s owner can deploy directly:

Hi Jordan,

Thank you for your time on the phone earlier. I have attached the invoice for the Barkmate Ultrasonic Barkbox for your reference.

I can confirm this is the third Bark Box purchased within the past month to help manage barking dogs neighbouring your property on both sides. The first was purchased on 31/03/2026 and the second on 07/04/2026. Your third unit will be dispatched to you tomorrow morning.

If the issue continues, we advise speaking with your neighbours or your local council to explore additional solutions.

Bark control collars are a very effective tool for reducing excessive barking and are commonly used as part of a broader management approach in situations like this. I’ve included links below to a couple of collar options we would recommend and you can pass onto your neighbours/local council.

Dogtra YS300 (Small dogs)

https://www.dogmaster.co.nz/dogtra-ys300-bark-control-collar-small-dogs/

Dogtra YS600 (Large dogs)

https://www.dogmaster.co.nz/dogtra-ys600-bark-control-collar-large-dogs/

Kind Regards,

Gabrielle McFall

Sales Representative NZ

07 855 4799

Free-call: 0800 DOGMASTER | 0800 364 627

The idea was that  Crawley or Hardgrave – who it could be argued, in their jobs, should already actually know about the existence of these options – could use this information to educate the nuisance dog’s owners. That is, take the simple action of recommending to the spaniel's owners that they spend $200 on a special barking deterrent collar that would solve the problem the phantom "animal behaviour trainer" had failed to solve.

But did Crawley, Hardgrave or anyone else on that large and apparently otherwise redundant council team do that? NO.

Instead, they decided it was easier - and far more entertaining for them - to simply insist that I’m making it all up.

Like I'm apparently making up the phantom dog that’s barking on all the recordings I’ve sent (none of which have ever been acknowledged despite the gaslighting strategy of having actually instructed me to make and send them) . . . including the one in this article that I recorded while literally reading Crawley’s email essentially telling me I’m fabricating it. Or imagining it. Or something.

As, apparently, so is the person who wrote this (named) independent witness statement to them:

"I was gardening in the rear yard of (my address) from approximately 9.15am. The spaniel at the neighbouring property (their address) was barking continuously for approximately 15-20 minutes for no apparent reason. It was just sitting in the sun and barking. The owners were visibly present in the house throughout the barking. No attempt was made to stop the dog barking until they eventually let it inside."
 
But perhaps her statement is irrelevant too, since she doesn’t have a penis either.

Would it help if I had a male independent witness write to you, Messrs Crawley and Hardgrave?

But surely . . . isn't the witness of the Council's own front counter staff member, Sandy Hewitt, who was a rare Council staff member who actually returned one of my phone calls and proactively observed that she could plainly hear the dog barking while on the phone to me . . . (PULL THE CALL RECORDING, CRAWLEY) isn't that credible, either? Your own staff member?

Or is your own staff member's witness also not credible on account or her likewise absence of a penis?

Gordon Crawley

Actually, I interviewed Gordon Crawley previously for this DoggieMamma article.

And if I speak frankly now, from the cooled-down distance of 17 months between that interview and today's article, I did find the man a curt, bordering on rude, misogynistic prick. I never let something like that come across in the resultant article that I've interviewed someone for, and thankfully it's rare, but this man was a pig.

Having now received his email shutting me down and closing out approaching two years of documented, multiple audio recording-evidenced, independently-witnessed complaints while the dog in question was actively barking, I find nothing in his May 8 "complaints dismissed" correspondence to revise that assessment of him.

I would also note that female frontline staff have promised me callbacks from Mr Crawley on multiple occasions. I have yet to receive a single one of those calls — the most recent promise having been made by the "Janet" on the recorded call I submitted to the council last week. If Mr Crawley would like me to resubmit that recording, I'd be happy to do so.

The Councillors . . . Our Elected 'Representatives'

Every email I sent to Animal Services was copied to Mayor Bex Johnson, Craig Bowyer, Waireka Collings, Tim Nelson, Jamie Falloon, Stella Lennox, David Holmes, Brent Goodwin.

The sum total of councillor responses, across coming up for two years of correspondence, was a brief email from Tim Nelson advising that he and Stella Lennox had "responded to other councillors" about my email.

That was it. From any of them. Apart from the one who replied ridiculing me. That was so despicable I won't even bother going back into my inbox to find it. But it did provide a window into the general level of intelligence of certain of our "elected representatives".

One councillor provided a ray of hope for the presence of some level of functional intellect around the council table. That councillor wrote in private in support of me, saying he was as frustrated with the lot of them as I was.

In January 2026 I wrote to the councillors pointing out what many in this community have pointed out to them repeatedly:

"Councillors nowadays appear to have become nothing other than an ignorable joke to staff and the management suite of councils like we have here in Masterton. You're toothless, impotent and apathetic. And the staff laugh in the face of any instruction you may be so bold as to give them."

Having since cc'd them on almost every subsequent email pleading for the Council's animal control management and personnel to do their job, complete with the multiple audio recordings I've been gaslightingly instructed to provide, I continue to stand by every word of the above, widely-shared sentiment.

Council's Questionable Managerial Culture Permeates Down the Ranks

A note on something that's concerned and disappointed me in equal proportions:

From conversations with the front line staff, whom I can never get past (and some of whom don't even bother to hide their mirth), I get the distinct impression that a far wider-than-necessary gaggle of them has entertained themselves with emails not intended for them.

Most disappointingly of all, that includes the personal detail I took the risk of including, in my desperation, in the email to their front counter staffer, Sandy Hewitt, who assured me she had some apparently magical powers to finally bring about a resolution to the problem, if I emailed her my case i.e. to her own specific email address.

To be noted, her direct email address, volunteered to me, was the ONLY one I'd used for that email, and yet "Janet" (on my subsequent phone call made to follow up its receipt) had been part of its apparently unintended broader audience.

I really AM disappointed, because I thought "Sandy" - whom I had actually met when I'd come in as frustrated as hell to try writing up a complaint at the front counter - seemed sufficiently trustworthy that I could explain some of the very real impacts this bloody spaniel and its recalcitrant owners are having on my life.

I guess that was naive. The culture of the Masterton District Council is all-pervasive from top to bottom.

The OIA

On April 30, 2026 I filed an Official Information Act request with Masterton District Council for the full documentation relating to all the barking complaints, all monitoring records, all communications between all parties, and all decisions made in relation to the address in question.

Just so he knows: Gordon Crawley's "complaints dismissed" email does not cancel that request. And this article should be included with it.

If it isn't, I'll be sending it in again as a "Correction" (under Principle 7 of the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020) of my personal information held by the council.

A Note on the Breed

The uncontrolled barking spaniel in question is a textbook example of exactly what dog trainer and behaviour specialist (as in, one that really does exist) Gabrielle McFall describes in this other DoggieMamma article: Before You Fall In Love with That Face: Choosing the Right Dog for Your Life, Your Home & Your Neighbours

That is, that a breed with significant energy and drive, like certain sub-breeds of spaniel, placed in an environment where those needs are clearly not being met (as this spaniel's are clearly not), with owners who are either unwilling or unable to address the resulting behaviour (as this spaniel's owners are clearly not), is a recipe for the exact problem that council at first acknowledged but now un-recognises.

In that sense, much as the dog is the vessel, it's not the real villain of the piece. Or the peace. The owners are. And the council is enabling them.

PS to Crawley:  The spaniel started barking in its regular consistent bursts somewhere around mid-afternoon as I wrote this article i.e. on Saturday (albeit it is being published the following day i.e. Sunday). It's now 7.19pm Saturday night as I make this PS addition to this draft article that I will be publishing tomorrow, Sunday. .  . and it's still going. FOUR HOURS. And still going.

Oh, and it barked at 10.55pm last night (Friday night i.e. the same night as you sent me your "it's not a nuisance barker" email) as I loaded the dishwasher IN MY OWN KITCHEN before bed. Its hearing is that bloody acute, as I've multiple times pointed out . . . and it requires me to tiptoe around in my own house if I don't want to set it off in consideration of all the other neighbours.

Then the dog belonging to the new neighbour woke me up at 6.45am this morning.

Oh yes. Crawley, Hardgrave & Co.:  If you would like - again - some of the numerous shorter recordings I've made of the spaniel during its marathon barkfests, at your request . . . I'd be happy to provide them. But better still, maybe you could more simply go and read some of the many emails you've ignored that they've been attached to . . . because I'm altogether tired of you calling me a liar.

YOU liar.

UPDATE: MONDAY, MAY 11, 2026:

So Crawley and the rest of the mysoginistic management at Masterton District Council require complainants to be in possession of male genitalia to generate any result regarding their complaints?

OK, fine. This should be what you need then - from a garden waste removal guy who arrived today and found the spaniel extremely annoying . . . and more to the point, extremely close . . . and has made the following specific, very logical recommendation to Crawley, Hardgrave & Co.:

TO: GORDON CRAWLEY, COUNCIL DOG CONTROL TEAM MANAGER

Monday, May 11, 2026

My name is (STATED IN EMAIL AND HARD COPY).

I understand there is an ongoing unresolved barking complaint situation here at this property, where I have been this morning removing a large amount of green waste.

When the spaniel in the neighbouring property was barking, it was just as though it was in my customer’s own property.

There was no difference in the proximity or the intensity of the dog’s barking. It was just the same as though it was in her own back yard, and just as annoying as if it was.

I suggest to the Council that they put their monitoring equipment / noise control equipment at her back fence, where she currently has the barking deterrent devices installed, but that are clearly not working for this particular dog.

FULL NAME (MR)
LOCATION