Dog barking ordinance bites the dust

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

Although most in the audience seemed to oppose a county ordinance aimed at curbing excessive dog barking, a handful of attendees supported the measure proposed in January.
“I love dogs,” former Supervisor Paul Price said. “The thing I don’t like is to hear dogs barking in the middle of the night… The pet owner needs to be taking responsibility.”
Price initially brought the matter up. The ordinance describes excessive dog barking as a dog barking “on a frequently or habitual basis for multiple days” and “that persist continuously for periods of time in excess of 15 minutes or multiple shorter episodes for consecutive, cumulative time periods in excess of one hour” and “such barking is plainly audible across outdoor real property boundaries or through partitions common to two residences within a building.”
To raise a complaint, according to the ordinance, two or more people from different households or a law enforcement officer must witness the long-term barking. Exemptions to the statute would include animal shelters, kennels, dogs on the hunt, dogs responding to pain or injury and a dog protecting itself or property. The ordinance requires that at least one person must have asked the dog’s owner to control the noise. Complaints also wouldn’t be considered emergency matters. The charge would be a class-four misdemeanor with a $25 fine plus court costs.
Laurel Flaccavento of Abingdon said she’s tried talking to her neighbor about their barking dogs but hasn’t gotten anywhere.
“We need someone to help,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a God-given right to have your dog bark in someone else’s space … It seems like a very reasonable ordinance.”
Other people didn’t think it was so reasonable.
Tommy Sweet of Damascus said, “A dog barks, a cow moos. There are coyotes that bark every night, are they going to be in this (ordinance)? If you come to my house I’ll swear up and down it’s a coyote.”
Another Abingdon resident said he didn’t want “the law fooling with me over a dog barking.”
Another question is enforceability.
Tracy Swann of Poor Valley Road said she didn’t think it was.
“I have dogs that bark and a neighbor that doesn’t like them barking and I don’t like them barking but that’s not going to change with this ordinance,” she said.
But when Sheriff Fred Newman came before the board, the bite went out of the barking ordinance.
He said this year there have been only 17 complaints for dog barking, as opposed to hundreds of complaints for dogs running at large.
“In good faith I cannot support the barking dog ordinance,” Newman said.
Although board members agree that barking can be a problem for county residents they voted unanimously to oppose the ordinance.
“I hope that those who do have dogs have consideration,” board member Phil McCall said. “I wish there was something to do but I don’t think this is it.”