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General News: How Long is Too Long for a Dog to Bark?

How long is too long?
How long is too long?
February 08, 2012

By Nancy Peckenham

The issue of barking dogs was back on the agenda of the Cornwall town board on Monday night as they tried to pinpoint just how long “too long” is when it comes to listening to your neighbor’s dog.

Police chief Todd Hazard told the board that a definition of this issue was important because the current law is ambiguous, to be applied when barking is “unreasonable.”

Town attorney Steven Gaba said the law the board originally proposed late last year required action be taken after a dog has barked continuously in four-minute intervals. On Monday, he described another approach that eliminates the intervals and establishes the period of acceptable barking to 15 minutes from 7a to 10 pm and ten minutes between 10 pm and 7am.

At one point, Supervisor Kevin Quigley asked new board member Elizabeth Longinott how she would describe “a long time” and she answered with a good imitation of a barking dog, then said “if a dog is barking for 15 minutes, it would drive me crazy.”

Deputy Supervisor Mary Beth Greene Krafft said the issue really comes to whether or not you like your neighbor and she described an incident to illustrate the problem. “A neighbor videotaped the dog barking,” she said, “and another neighbor videotaped the neighbor’s wife throwing stones to get the dog barking.”

If members of the public have something to say on proposal to limit barking dogs to ten and 15 minutes, and the requirement that owners must clean up after their dog and dispose of it in a receptacle, they may attend a public hearing on the proposal on Monday, February 13, at 7:15 pm in Cornwall Town Hall.



Comments:

A couple questions pop into my mind about this ...

First, is the proposal going define if the dog is barking indoors vs outdoors? Are dog owners going to be accountable for dogs barking inside the house if the neighbors can still hear it? Or is this just going to regulate how long you can leave a dog outside to bark?

Second, certain breeds are just prone to being vocal and barking. Will dog owners be allowed a period of time to train the dog not to bark? Dogs wearing bark collars even need to be trained, and if not done properly they can wind up with behavioral issues that would then have to be dealt with. Every family that chooses to get a puppy or adopt a dog is going to have to expect some kind of training period to modify the dogs behavior to what is acceptable in the current environment.


posted by Melissa Vellone on 02/08/12 at 3:12 PM

Woof! Woofer! Woofest!


posted by Michael Summerfield on 02/08/12 at 4:28 PM

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