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During the day, people can put up with barking.

So you have made that determination for everyone? There is barking that lands in the category of "life's annoyances," and there's barking that is excessive and in many places, against the law. If I couldn't walk in my yard without my neighbor's dog barking at me, I think that's excessive. I have a right to be in my backyard without dealing with barking. What is it about barking that's so special that no one can complain about it? As for your other examples, I know a lawnmower will stop once the lawn is mown. I know construction will start and stop at a particular point, and I know it will end. Fireworks are a pita (we have them here), but again, they aren't continuous and they don't go on for hours on end, at random times, throughout the year. Barking dogs make noise, sometimes continuously, whenever they want, randomly, at any point in the day, until they are brought inside or the neighbors have all refused to go outside for fear of causing the dogs to bark again.

Decisions that neighbors barking dogs make for others include: what time you get up; what time you go to bed; whether you can keep your windows open on a nice day have to close them and turn on your A/C; whether you can have a party or gathering outside; whether you can take a walk within their sight line; whether you can have your morning coffee outside on your deck and enjoy the morning.

It sounds like you and your neighbors are all OK with your dogs' barking, and perhaps have even formed a tacit agreement that since each of you has barking dogs, the barking isn't a problem. I wonder if your non-dog owning neighbors feel the same way. If you had neighbors who complained to you, or asked you to curb your dogs' barking, would you? In my experience, most neighbors are unwilling to complain, even if they don't like it, because they want to be neighborly--and many people take advantage of that. I don't know if that's the case for you, but there are other perspectives.

We have refused to buy houses because they were next to barking dogs. We have made a decision to move, in another case, for a variety of reasons but one was most definitely to get away from a barking dog. If it was any other sort of noise, people would be up in arms. But barking dogs seem to get a pass. I don't get it.

I think the argument that in a democracy it is OK for one group of people to impose a nuisance on another group simply because they can outvote them is kind of silly. That's why we have nuisance law, right?

I mean, if a pro football team wants to build a 100,000 seat stadium bordering your back fence, the fact that the vote is 100,000 to 1 doesn't mean the homeowner is screwed. Just because the majority can vote for something dumb like a dog park in a congested neighborhood doesn't mean that should be the result.

As to whether this area has big yards, no. Definitely not. It has nothing to do with McMansions. The neighborhood is 1-2 miles north of the DC line, so lots are too small for exercising a dog. And in my opinion it is cruel in our area to keep a dog outside -- too hot for them in the summer, too cold in the winter.

Are there breeds that must be exercised off-leash? I would say no. By that I mean there is always an alternative to exercising a dog at a dog park. You may have to hire a dog walker/runner, you may have to get on a bike. Or you may have to *think about that before you get that kind of dog.*

I do not think the compromise of closing the park at night works. Homeowners are entitled to quiet enjoyment of their home all of the time, not just at night. I can imagine having a baby awakened from naps every day because of barking dogs. Not to mention that many people work remotely, so it is not fair to assume that no one is home to hear incessant barking during the daytime.

What I don't accept is that it is a problem for the county to solve, or that it is something another homeowner has to tolerate. It's your dog. Figure something out that doesn't ruin someone else's quiet enjoyment.

Cindy -- who works from home on her patio frequently and would be driven to distraction if a dog park were nearby

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Homeowners are entitled to quiet enjoyment of their home all of the time, not just at night.

This. As Cindy mentions, some people work at home. I don't often, but when I want to work at home, I want to be able to work there without having to suffer through a dog that never stops barking. or if I have a migraine and need to take a nap, whatever time of day it is, I should be able to do that.

Yep. Cindy reminds me of another question of life: why do people who live in small houses, on tiny lots, get large dogs and then just store them in the back yard?

I also work from home 2 days a week, and can no longer use my speaker phone for calls because barking dogs distract not just me but the entire conference call. Yes, it's that loud, inside my house, if I have the windows open.

I am so grateful that, just by happenstance, there are no constantly-barking dogs near our house. There's a dog down the block that barks occasionally but that's average tolerable barking-at-a-distance.

There was one summer years ago when the next-door neighbor (different from the current one) left a dog outdoors nearly all the time and it barked to high heaven. It nearly drove us crazy, and I imagine the same for other neighbors.

Another favorite of mine: you're walking on a sidewalk, quietly lost in thought, and pass some household where a dog suddenly goes nuts with barking because he's "protecting" the property. So much for your mood.

Not to mention those awful invisible fences.

One of my tennis partners was walking her large dog on a leash, and they passed a house that had an unattended dog in the front yard. That dog saw my friend's dog and bolted toward them. That dog stopped at the edge of their property because of an invisible fence.

My friend's dog saw this and bolted away from the other dog, knocking my friend to the ground. She broke her arm.

Had this been a regular fence, neither my friend nor her dog would have feared they were about to be attacked.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
I think the argument that in a democracy it is OK for one group of people to impose a nuisance on another group simply because they can outvote them is kind of silly. That's why we have nuisance law, right?

You always go for the insults, don't you? You never say you disagree and leave it at that. You always characterize the argument as silly, or some equal insulting adjective. Perhaps that leads to escalation.

Nuisance LAW. A law can be changed by whatever body created the law. There's no constitutional requirement regarding nuisance law, is there? (Unless it rises to the level of a Fifth Amendment taking.) Tort law is a state law issue, correct? A state could amend its tort law to bar or limit claims on the basis of sound nuisance, couldn't it? Of course it could. (Again, subject to the Fifth Amendment, which I feel I need to keep saying to make sure that you don't say "But what about the Fifth Amendment?" as if I never brought it up.)

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I mean, if a pro football team wants to build a 100,000 seat stadium bordering your back fence, the fact that the vote is 100,000 to 1 doesn't mean the homeowner is screwed. Just because the majority can vote for something dumb like a dog park in a congested neighborhood doesn't mean that should be the result.

Hence, why I mentioned the Fifth Amendment. That said, I used the Wolftrap example because I know people who used to own property near there, and were impacted. Both by noise and by traffic.

If there's no Fifth Amendment issue, the jurisdiction gets to decide for itself how to balance the desires of the 100,000 against the desires of the one.

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Are there breeds that must be exercised off-leash? I would say no.

You might say no if you were ignorant of the behavior of all breeds. Try exercising a Vizsla on-leash.

I owned a Vizsla when I lived in San Francisco. My ex-sister-in-law could take him on ten mile runs over the Golden Gate Bridge, and up into the hills. He'd come back wired. He'd get into this efficient little stride, and it wasn't really much exercise for him.

We used to exercise him an hour every day. We'd throw a ball down a hill (Alta Plaza, which was de facto leash free, there were a bunch of dog owners who'd meet there every morning and every evening), and he'd fetch it back up the hill. Or take him to the beach and throw a Kong into the bay, and have him swim out to get it.

Speaking of Alta Plaza, it's at the top of Pacific Heights. It's bordered by INCREDIBLY expensive houses. Linda Ronstadt's house is across the street. So's Danielle Steele's. I could have thrown a tennis ball and hit either of their houses from where the dogs were. I know of not a single noise complaint ever filed against anyone in the roughly six years we took our dog there. Maybe people in San Francisco are just more tolerant.

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By that I mean there is always an alternative to exercising a dog at a dog park. You may have to hire a dog walker/runner, you may have to get on a bike. Or you may have to *think about that before you get that kind of dog.*

Indeed, we explored how we'd exercise him, and where people exercised their dogs, before we bought him.

By the way, using a bike to exercise a dog is dangerous. If you dog pulls at all, they can pull you over on a bike. There are special devices that attach to the bike that can ameliorate that problem, but I've been told they are only a partial fix.

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I do not think the compromise of closing the park at night works. Homeowners are entitled to quiet enjoyment of their home all of the time, not just at night.

That is absolutely untrue in practice. If your next-door neighbor gets a one-year construction permit to raze their house and rebuild, tell me again about your right to quiet enjoyment during the daytime, as long as the work is done within the hour restrictions set forth by the permitting jurisdiction.

In fact, I am under the impression that most jurisdictions have different rules for daytime noise and nighttime noise. Hence, why it may not be OK to mow your grass at 5AM, but it is OK at 2PM.

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What I don't accept is that it is a problem for the county to solve, or that it is something another homeowner has to tolerate. It's your dog. Figure something out that doesn't ruin someone else's quiet enjoyment.

Cindy -- who works from home on her patio frequently and would be driven to distraction if a dog park were nearby

That's a moral argument, not a legal argument. A jurisdiction gets to decide for itself how much noise is too much. There is no Constitutional standard for decibel levels, or for the hours that those decibel standards apply. (Again, subject to potential Fifth Amendment takings claims.) Homeowners have an interest. Dog owners have an interest. Elected officials are elected to balance those interests. If you don't like the balance that they've struck, elect different officials.

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Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

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Homeowners are entitled to quiet enjoyment of their home all of the time, not just at night.

This. As Cindy mentions, some people work at home. I don't often, but when I want to work at home, I want to be able to work there without having to suffer through a dog that never stops barking. or if I have a migraine and need to take a nap, whatever time of day it is, I should be able to do that.

What do you do if you want to take a nap, and your neighbor decides to mow their lawn? Lawn mowers can be a lot louder than a dog. If my Massachusetts neighbor decided to mow their lawn at 8AM, I can assure you I wasn't sleeping late that morning.

But you know that you will be able to take a nap later on in the day, or even fall asleep again in 20 minutes or so and not be awakened by your neighbor mowing the lawn, because it was already done. If you are awakened early by a barking dog, you don't know if you will be able to go back to sleep or take a nap later, because the dogs will bark anytime they want. It's totally unpredictable.

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Originally posted by Nina:
But you know that you will be able to take a nap later on in the day, or even fall asleep again in 20 minutes or so and not be awakened by your neighbor mowing the lawn, because it was already done. If you are awakened early by a barking dog, you don't know if you will be able to go back to sleep or take a nap later, because the dogs will bark anytime they want. It's totally unpredictable.

You can only hear one neighbor? In Massachusetts, I could hear several.

And my point still stands. But, for the record, there are 4 barking dogs near me.

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
M

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Originally posted by piqué:
Love dogs.

Cannot stand the average selfish, stupid, inconsiderate, clueless dog owner.

The city used taxpayer funds to build a dog park. Citizens are using it as intended. It’s not surprising that the dogs bark.

Why the hate on dog owners?

Not referring to this article but in general. There is an epidemic of behavior as I described it. People with dogs off leash where leashes are required. People letting dogs roam at large. People not training their dogs to behave in public. People letting their dogs run up to pedestrians and jump on them. People leaving bags of dog sh!t along the trail as if there is a poop fairy who will pick it up for them. People using retractable leashes and not locking them. People letting their dogs obstruct or chase bicyclists. Should I continue? There's plenty more.

Oh and my favorite: " he's friendly!" as their dog races up to you, your child, or your dog uninvited and proceeds to attack. "He just wants to say hi!"

"Poop fairy"

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People leaving bags of dog sh!t along the trail as if there is a poop fairy who will pick it up for them.

Do you know that they aren't coming back to pick it up?

I have very often stashed a poop bag so that I didn't have to carry it around with me on my walk (the dog usually poops as soon as the trash cans are out of sight), but I've always gone back to get it on my way out.

Only if you're planning on waiting until you have 7-10 bags before returning.... at least, that's how it plays out here.