Different attitudes

In our last house, the neighbour on the left side complained to me over the fence about Zeb barking. She said Zeb barked everytime they hung their clothes outside(their clothes line was right near the side fence) or used their toilet near the side fence. Her son couldn't study becaue of Zeb so the son (not her) would complain to the council if Zeb kept barking. She suggested I buy an expensive collar to stop Zeb from barking. Zeb is friendly and not a barky dog by nature but I can't say Zeb never bark(dogs by nature would bark at strangers near the house!) so I said we would keep an eye on things. We found the dog on our right side barked a lot more than Zeb and didn't find the barking excessive at all. Luckily we didn't stay in that house for very long. I bumped into this ex-neighbour a couple of weeks ago and now she complained to me about her 'new' neighbour's birds!

In our new house, the backdoor neighbour told us over the back fence that Zeb sometimes barks when she's near the fence. She asked if she could give Zeb a bone. She thought Zeb barked becaue Zeb didn't know her and she wanted to give Zeb a bone to make friends with her.

How different are the two attitudes under very similar situations? I know which neighbour I want to make friends with and which attitude I would like to possess myself. Granted that the previous neighbour probably doesn't like dogs and this new neighbour does, but this make me think about our attitudes towards things in general. How do we handle situations we want to change? Do we complain and threaten or do we think of ways we can help improving things?