The barking dog had awakened neighbors for...

The barking dog had awakened neighbors for two years. Police were called on one occasion. Another time, a woman in her nightgown made an early morning visit to the dog owner to complain.

By this summer, there was some improvement. Then came an August weekend when the woman who owned the dog was called away on a family emergency and left the dog at home.

“At 3 a.m., the dog seemed to be coming through the window,” said one neighbor.

Welcome to Dog Mediation, Manhattan Beach style.

With professional dog trainer Ron Berman as referee, the dog owner and three neighbors vented their feelings recently in a City Hall conference room for an hour.

They raised their voices, talking over and around each other.

One complainant expressed frustration, saying that although he recognizes the owner’s good faith, eventually the dog will start barking again.

The owner shot back that there had even been complaints when the dog was away at her mother’s house.

In the end, Berman got the scrappers to agree to work together the next time the dog creates a disturbance. But the people seemed to take much of their tensions with them as they left the room.

In three years of voluntarily mediating barking dog problems for the city, Berman claims a 100% success record. But he is not sure about this latest one: “It (a dog dispute) usually ends with a little less stuff left over. One complainer was very angry, and the woman with the dog was furious when she came in, as bad as I’ve seen anyone.”

Still, the 45-year-old Manhattan Beach resident and owner of a dog and two cats, says he’s optimistic. He hopes the neighbors will be more understanding of the owner’s efforts to control her dog, including the use of a shock collar that gives the animal a jolt when it barks.

As Berman, who used to work in corporate customer relations, describes it, emotions are the stumbling block. The art of mediation is getting people to “recognize the position of the other” and “let off steam” so they can begin communicating and solve the problem.

Berman and city officials involved in animal problems say that barking dogs generate by far the most complaints, and for good reason.

Says Berman: “People lose sleep early in the morning or at night. They feel their rights are impinged on. They can’t read, can’t concentrate, can’t hear their TV.”

In one case he handled, a barking dog led two couples to get into a street fight that police had to break up. In another, a woman kept a voluminous typewritten record on a neighbor’s dog, counting the number of barks and noting when she heard them. To her, he said, the barking was like “a pain that won’t go away.”

Howard Fishman, who is in charge of animal and parking control for the city, said he gets two to three calls a week about barking dogs.

It doesn’t usually require Berman’s skills; the vast majority of cases are settled by the neighbors themselves. Berman has mediated about 10 cases--sometimes he and Fishman visit the problem dog--since he became what Fishman calls the city’s “canine consultant.”

Though some animal experts might disagree, Berman says there’s no such thing as a barking dog that can’t be quieted.

“Most dog problems are people problems,” he said, explaining that misbehaving canines reflect the owner’s inability to say no. The owner “keeps giving in and lets the dog be constantly persistent in what he wants. He becomes like a small child,” Berman said. “If a dog is well-trained and you say, ‘Stop it,’ it’s over.”

He said the solution, even for the most persistent barkers, is proper training. The best thing to do with dogs that bark outdoors at night is to bring them inside.

And what about latchkey dogs, left indoors by working people, which bark because they feel abandoned?

Berman said the solution is to overcome one’s guilt about leaving the dog alone and be less indulgent when at home, allowing the dog to become more self-reliant. “Put it out for short periods when you’re home, let it know that being outside is not punishment or being deserted,” he said.

Fishman said that in his mediation sessions, Berman avoids getting caught up in the emotions running through the meeting. Instead he tries to “relate to pet owners and relate to the fact that dogs can be a problem.” Even Berman gets bothered sometimes by barking dogs, Fishman added.

Berman, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and has been working toward a doctorate in behavioral science, moved to Manhattan Beach 12 years ago and began working as a trainer. He writes a column about pets, lectures on animal behavior to animal control officers and veterinary staffs, and on a recent trip to Japan, talked to pet shop owners about puppy training. And he has helped code enforcement officers in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach learn not to personalize the terrible things people say to them.

When it comes to training dogs or people, Berman says dogs are easier.

“Basically, most dogs are willing to please their owners,” he said, noting that dogs are pack animals looking for a leader.

But, he said, people have “many layers of defense,” along with concerns about ego and self-esteem. “People put on an image and pretend to be comfortable when they’re not,” he said. “But dogs don’t have self-esteem problems. They don’t walk about saying, ‘I don’t feel good about myself.’ ”