Deep breath! lol It was such a painful situation for me that it's been hard to get over. However, Tina is in a better, happier place now. I am convinced of that.
Me too, even the ones that have been dead for many years still come to mind very easily. Today I was in the supermarket looking at the satsumas and the first little dog we had when we got married popped into my mind. He loved oranges, he would absolutely anything for a piece of orange. He was a real character.
I am fully in favor of any barking ordinance. I live in a small town in Northern CA and have been putting up with my neighbor's barking dogs for over 3 years. He leaves early Monday morning and doesn't return home until late Friday night. After many discussions (more like arguments), calls to police, etc, he finally got a bark collar, but if the collar slides to the side it doesn't work at all and we are left to hear it bark constantly for hours and it likes to bark right outside our bedroom window. After dozens of calls to police and talking to the chief of police (remember it's a small town) they FINALLY adopted a barking dog Ordinance with a formal complaint by TWO separate residences required before they can start fining. 1st offense after written complaint is filed is $150, then $250 for 2nd offense, then $500 for third AND they can take the the dog. Now don't think we hate dogs...we have two ourselves, and yes they do bark, but we are responsible dog owners. We used to leave our dogs outside when we left, but our other neighbor told me that she barked alot when we weren't home...so we did something about it and there were no more problems. It's the irresponsible dog owners like my a*****e neighbor who don't care that are the problem.
I do see your point coacht73, but surely there are already laws in place to deal with dogs that bark constantly like the one you mention. If the dog is left alone for so long it sounds as if he should be investigated for animal cruelty.
We don't have a barking ordinance, but we do have laws to deal with persistence noise nuisance so it is possible to deal with the problem, but it does seem to take a long time.
I just would like to know what the neighbor said. You mentioned talking to the police, but did you have conversations with the neighbor? What did they say?
Until the ordinance came into play there were no laws dealing specfically with barking dogs. There is a "noise" ordinance and it was worded "from any source", but it didn't specfically say dogs, so there was nothing legally we could do except call the police every time the dog barked, but there was nothing they could do....until now with the ordinance.
Orrymain: We did talk to the neighbor on a number of occasions, but he is such a hothead that he told us verbatim, "you do what you gotta do", and that was pretty much it...so we did.
I do think this borders on animal cruelty, but the dogs are not emaciated so somehow they are getting fed. I almost wish they were undernourished so that they could be taken and treated the way they should be. I don't blame the dogs, I blame the owner. They bark out of boredom and not having any attention all week. Why have dogs if you are aren't going to be home all week?