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Complaint Letter About a Neighbour's Barking Dog: IELTS General Training Sample
The barking dog task is the most common complaint scenario in IELTS General Training Task 1. It looks easy, and that is the trap. Most candidates write an angry letter, cover two of the three bullet points, and lose marks on a task they thought they had passed.
This post gives one complete letter, then the skeleton underneath it. The skeleton is the part worth learning, because the same four moves work for noise, parking, rubbish, building work and a broken lift.
The task
Task 1. Your neighbour has a dog that barks loudly at night. Write a letter to your neighbour. In your letter:
- explain who you are
- describe the problem the dog is causing
- suggest what your neighbour could do
Write at least 150 words. You do not need to write any addresses. Begin your letter Dear...
Three bullet points appear in every General Training Task 1 question. Task Achievement, the first of the four public band descriptors, asks whether all three were covered clearly. If you skip one, or cover it in half a sentence, the mark for that criterion is limited no matter how good your grammar is.
Choose the register before you choose the words
The task says "your neighbour" and gives no name and no relationship. That points at semi-formal. Semi-formal means polite, complete sentences, no slang, and no contractions, but it is warmer than a letter to a government office.
| What the task tells you | Register | Greeting | Sign-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| "your neighbour", no name | Semi-formal | Dear Neighbour, | Kind regards, |
| "your neighbour, Mrs Kaur" | Semi-formal | Dear Mrs Kaur, | Yours sincerely, |
| "a neighbour you know well" | Informal | Dear Priya, | Best wishes, |
| "the building manager" | Formal | Dear Sir or Madam, | Yours faithfully, |
One rule covers the sign-off. If you know the reader's surname, write "Yours sincerely". If you do not, write "Yours faithfully". A friend gets neither.
The sample letter
Dear Mr Almeida, My name is Thanh Nguyen and I live at number 27, the house directly behind yours. We have not met properly yet, although I think we passed each other at the recycling point last month. I am writing about your dog. Since about the middle of June, he has been barking for long periods during the night, usually between midnight and three in the morning. My bedroom window faces your garden, so the sound reaches me very clearly. I have a nine month old daughter who wakes each time it starts, and my wife and I have both been going to work on four or five hours of sleep. Last week I fell asleep at my desk. I am sure you are not aware of how far the noise travels, and I know a dog left alone outside can become anxious very quickly. Would it be possible to bring him indoors overnight? If the problem is that he is restless, a longer walk in the evening often settles a dog before bedtime, and our local vet runs a free advice session on Saturday mornings. I would much rather sort this out between ourselves than involve anyone else. Please knock on my door any evening this week if you would like to talk. Kind regards, Thanh Nguyen
212 words.
The skeleton underneath it
Read the letter again and you will see four moves, in this order. Every complaint letter in this exam can be built from them.
Move one, identify yourself and soften the opening. One or two sentences. Name, where you live, and how the reader might know you. The friendly detail about the recycling point costs six words and it changes the tone of everything that follows.
Move two, describe the problem with specific facts. This is where bands separate. Weak letters write "your dog barks a lot and it is very annoying." Strong letters give a start date, a time window, a physical reason the noise reaches you, and a consequence. Since the middle of June. Between midnight and three. My bedroom faces your garden. My daughter wakes. Facts are not decoration; they are what makes a complaint sound reasonable rather than emotional.
Move three, suggest a solution and assume good faith. Notice the sample never says the neighbour is careless. It says "I am sure you are not aware", then offers two practical ideas. Suitability of tone sits inside Task Achievement, so this is not just politeness, it is marks.
Move four, close with a next step. Invite a reply, a conversation or an action. "Please knock on my door any evening this week" is a real ending. "Thank you for your cooperation" is a template ending, and templates are discounted.
The same skeleton, four different tasks
| Task | Move two becomes | Move three becomes |
|---|---|---|
| Barking dog | Dates, times, why sound carries, effect on sleep | Bring the dog in at night, longer evening walk |
| Parking | Which space, how often, what you cannot do because of it | Use the visitor bay, agree a swap on bin day |
| Rubbish | What is left where, since when, the smell or the pests | Move bags inside until collection morning |
| Building work | Which days, which hours, which room it affects | Agree quiet hours, warn you before the loud days |
The wording changes. The four moves do not.
Three mistakes that cost real marks
Writing as though you are furious. Anger reads as an unsuitable tone for a semi-formal reader, and it usually shortens the letter, which then misses a bullet point.
Forgetting bullet one. "Explain who you are" is an instruction, not a warm-up. Name and address, one sentence, always.
Writing 350 words. The requirement is at least 150. Somewhere between 170 and 220 is comfortable. Beyond that you are adding chances to make grammar errors while Task 2, which is worth twice as much, waits for you. Task 1 should take twenty minutes.
Do this today
Take the sample above and rewrite only move two, changing the dog to a parking problem. Keep the same four sentence shape: when it started, when it happens, why it affects you, what the consequence has been. Ten minutes, one paragraph. Repeating the skeleton on new content is what makes it automatic in the exam.
When you write a full letter, paste it into Bandly for an estimated band on each of the four criteria and the sentences behind each estimate, which is a quick way to check whether your tone stayed steady from the greeting to the sign-off.
Find out what this essay would score
Paste your own answer and Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria, with the sentences that pulled the score down. Under a cent an essay, about six seconds.
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