Atlanta council takes a bite at bothersome barking dogs

One frequent theme of criticism of Atlanta’s legislation got here on Fb from a woman named Selena. “Guess what of us,” she declared. “Canines bark.”

Sure, they do. And a few yelp and howl and whimper and …

One other appraisal got here from a professor eminent within the examine of housing points. “Actually? There’s a housing disaster & a gun disaster. This?” he wrote on Twitter, indicating he’s unaware of the barking canine disaster.

However those that bash town for attempting to silence relentless barking whereas Rome burns overlook that transferring on one situation doesn’t essentially negate appearing on one other. Individuals, even Metropolis Council members, can do two issues concurrently.

The president can negotiate a nuclear weapons treaty and the subsequent day pardon a turkey. And whereas the reprieve doesn’t examine with Armageddon, it’s nonetheless necessary to the turkey.

The legislation was pushed by Councilman Dustin Hillis, a taciturn fellow who heads the Public Security Committee. The council vote was a tweak of current legislation that halved the time canine can bark nonstop from 20 minutes to 10. The revising laws got here out of nowhere this month and Hillis has largely buttoned up on the difficulty aside from to say the legislation has existed for years and the change allowed “extra practical enforcement.”

I can see his reticence on this affair. Certain, he has dived into dicey issues like constructing a cop coaching heart in a forest and renting out town’s jail to the sheriff. However get crosswise with the homeowners of yappy Pomeranians and be careful!

The law states it’s illegal for a pet proprietor “to fail to restrain the animal(s) from, or to permit the animals, to bark, meow, whine, howl, or to make different sounds frequent to the species.” This, I’m positive, was added by metropolis attorneys to make the legislation non-discriminatory, in order that no animal or their fussy proprietor feels singled out.

And the “persistently or repeatedly” barking, meowing or braying means “nonstop utterances for ten (10) consecutive minutes with particular person interruptions of lower than twenty (20) seconds at a time through the ten minute utterances.”

OK, I went again to Hillis to clarify that clunky verbiage to no avail. I believe it means if a canine stops howling six minutes into his rant to get a 30-second drink from his water bowl, then the 10-minute barking clock dials again to zero.

Are you able to think about having a cop or animal management officer standing in your yard for 10 minutes to catch uninterrupted barking and howling? In all probability not. I suppose you’ll be able to file it in your iPhone however then the pet proprietor neighbor would argue that it’s not his canine yapping, that you just went all the way down to the canine pound and taped the cacophony there. Fines begin at $150 and go north if the proprietor, and canine, don’t abide.

Councilwoman Keisha Waites, the lone no-vote, mentioned she was “furious” in regards to the laws and dropped in just a few sailor’s epithets whereas discussing the matter. Waites, who owns two canine, mentioned the ordinance was pointless and “we’re going to legislate ourselves into nothingness. I believe you’ll see frivolous complaints coming.”

Council President Doug Shipman mentioned the difficulty originated with complaints from a Grant Park resident. He mentioned attempting to catch a canine barking for 20 minutes was “unenforceable.”

“As we get extra density within the metropolis, this can frequently come up,” he mentioned. It can additionally preserve occurring as we get denser canine homeowners, which is going on.

A lot of it has to do with the pandemic. Many of us, together with those that shouldn’t personal a canine, adopted them throughout COVID after they wanted a snuggle buddy. However retaining a canine exercised and engaged takes effort and time, so many homeowners merely open up the again door and go about their enterprise. Generally they simply don’t hear the barking. Usually, they simply go away and let the neighbors soak up the trouble for hours.

Now that extra folks work from home all day, barking canine are extra of a nuisance. They’re like four-legged leaf blowers.

In our dialogue, Shipman introduced up a novel technique: “Most of those circumstances may be solved by ringing a doorbell,” he mentioned.

It’s elementary, pricey Watson. Be considerate of your neighbors. And thoughts your darned canine.