BarkingDogs.net

The Barking Dogs General News

Introduction

The B. D. General News is a catchall category, where you will find media accounts of the barking epidemic that did not quite fit in to any of the other six news classifications.

As Noise Rises, So Do the Dangers
Summary: Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have announced the results of research showing that suffering and blood pressure both increased among hospital patients as they were subjected to increasing amounts of noise. They also found that noise interferes with healing and recovery, and increases the risk of heart attack by 50% for men and by 75% for women.

Noise May Raise Heart Attack Risk
Summary: Researchers from the Institute for Social Medicine conducted a research study that demonstrated a clear, mild to moderate link between exposure to chronic noise and your likelihood of experiencing a heart attack. Remarkably, the research team found evidence to show that, even if noise does not annoy you, it may still be hurting you.

Carlisle Bark Victim Resorts to Air Horn Therapy
Summary: Tired of waiting for township officials to develop enough backbone to pass an anti-barking law, and fed up with the astoundingly loud dogs barking next door, a Carlisle, Pennsylvania woman has begun her own form of bark training by blasting her neighbors and their dogs with an air horn every time the animals bark.

Anyone with seventy dollars in their pocket can walk into an auto parts store and purchase an air horn, and that price includes all the accessories necessary to make the thing work. Those devices, which are powered by air compressors, blast out an obnoxious tone, which may be loud enough to make the dog next door sorry that he barked, while simultaneously causing his owner to regret that he neglected to train the beast.

Air horns pose an interesting dilemma for law enforcement because, although they can produce a piercing blast, the amount of noise they make is not all that much louder than the voice of a large, barking dog being kept by an irresponsible or malicious owner, which the authorities tolerate. If the police then show up to cite the bark abuse victim for blasting his air horn in an attempt to quiet his neighbor's dogs, they may then find themselves indicted by the illogic of their own polices, as they try to explain why it is that someone who maliciously or irresponsibly creates X amount of noise is considered a good citizen, while his neighbor, who produces roughly the same amount of sound in an attempt to protect the health and well being of his family, is treated as a criminal.

Finally! - Someone Gets Arrested Because They Kept a Barking Dog
Summary: A Florida motorcylist temporarily escaped from the police after a 140 mile per hour chase that ended when he gave authorities the slip long enough to get stopped and hide his motorcycle in his bedroom. The fugitive was arrested moments later, however, when his dog, who was barking out the window at newly arrived police officers, knocked down the blinds in the bedroom, revealing the hidden motorcycle.

Hermiston Police Use Barking Dog Enforcement to Fight the War On Methamphetamine
Police in Hermiston, Oregon are attacking their methamphetamine problem through a vigorous program of drug interdiction that includes barking dog enforcement as one of its components. Using that technique, in which they strive to interact actively with the public, all the while watching for illicit activity, arrests for the manufacture of methamphetamine have risen from three to fifty-nine in just two years.

The Mystery of the Barking Phone Caller
Summary: A woman in California reported to the San Diego police that she was getting persistent, annoying phone calls in which someone would ring her up in the middle of the night, bark like a dog, and then hang up.

Think about it. Who would do such a thing? For the answer, click on the link immediately above.

Thanks to Barking Enforcement, Forty Dogs Are Saved from a Life of Illness and Deprivation
Summary: In response to complaints about an offensive odor and the noise of barking dogs, the local Department of Code Enforcement served an inspection warrant in Upland, California, where they found 40 dogs suffering from flea bites, infection, and illness, being kept in an uninhabitable home. The dogs were seized and those that were well enough were turned over to an animal rescue organization

Please note that it was the Department of Code Enforcement, probably motivated by the complaint of an odor, that rescued the dogs. One has to wonder if the unfortunate creatures would have ever been saved were they left to the mercy of animal control, and the unworkable barking laws of southern California.

Barking Dog Enforcement Leads Police to Locate Culprit in the Beating of a Blind Man
Summary: Ross Bailey, of Carlsbad, New Mexico, fled the scene after beating a blind man who attempted to defend his seeing-eye companion as it was being attacked by one of Mr. Bailey's two dogs.

However, the culprit was later apprehended by police after they were summoned to his residence by a neighbor who complained about his dogs barking.

Barking dog enforcement is one of the great underutilized techniques of law enforcement. People who keep overly vocal canines tend to be high on the scale for hostility and belligerence, and frequently suffer from Paranoid, Borderline, Narcissistic or Anti-Social Personality disorders. Not to mention that those who keep noisy canines also tend to be irresponsible and all-around problematic dog owners. Barking dog enforcement, then, gives the P. D. probable cause to call on, get to know and, in general, keep an eye on that chaotic, troublesome population. We need to see much more of it.

The Public Health Hangs in the Balance in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, under the leadership of Mayor Martin Chavez, is considering the adoption of a multiple-household barking law. The Mayor has been informed that the ordinance under consideration by the city council is so difficult to enforce that its adoption will, for all practical purposes, amount to the legalization of chronic barking.

Will the mayor demand that the proposed law be abandoned and push instead for the adoption of an effective ordinance that protects the public health? Or will he embrace the proposed ordinance that positions irresponsible dog owners above the law and beyond accountability, while leaving their victimized neighbors with no way to halt the abuse and reclaim their shattered lives?

Many Albuquerque citizens have confidence that Mayor Chavez will make this issue a top priority and not allow the city to take a step backwards in dealing with barking dogs. Let us hope that their confidence is well placed.

Barkingdogs.net will track this story over time. Please check back to learn the fate of Albuquerque, New Mexico's proposed barking dog law changes.

Dog Owners Express Outrage at Effort to Get Them to Quiet Their Dog
Summary: This story is instructive because it illustrates a commonly encountered personality type that frequently keeps barking dogs.

As you read the story, you'll meet dog owners who don't see anything wrong with keeping a barking dog in a residential neighborhood. They believe that, regardless of whether or not it is illegal, that they have a right to do it, and they are outraged that someone is trying to force the issue.

Typical of such people, they refuse to acknowledge that their neighbors are being injured by their behavior, and insist that their persecution is the real motive behind the complaints about their dog.

In Flower Mound, Texas, where these people live, animal control only writes tickets for barking dogs if the animal sounds off continuously for several consecutive minutes. Therefore, if a dog barked, for example, at a rate of once every two seconds, and kept it up for thirty seconds, and did that once every five minutes, that would be all right with the city. But the dog owners in the article seem to think that standard is too high.

How much do you know about dogs?
Apparently, without any awareness of how their behavior is impacting their dog, the owners are doing something that is sure to increase the animal's rate of barking. The tip-off is there in the news article. As you read the story, can you figure out what it is they are doing that is increasing their dog's frequency of barking?

Click here to read the article and access the answer to the question.

Journalist's Dilemma Flags a Badly Broken System
Summary: When it comes to the dog management system there are two types of people: those who don't know anything about it ­ and those who know that it is broken. David Horsley, a journalist with the Globe News in Amarillo, Texas, appears to be the latter.

Horsley tells the story of the night he drove down the street throwing bits of hot dog out the window of his car as he tried to lure a potentially dangerous pit bull out of his back yard and away from his house. While relating the story he casually tells us that his dog, his neighbor's dog and the wandering pit bull are all chronic barkers. He mentions multiple dogs that have been running loose in his neighborhood without tags, including cat-killing pit bulls. Horsley tops off the story by telling us that he could not rid himself of the potentially dangerous dog by calling animal control because he was aware they would be unavailable. And as a reporter who was familiar with the system, he didn't bother to call the police because he knew that they wouldn't do anything either.

The fact that this veteran reporter is not the least shocked or the least outraged by the situation he describes just goes to show the extent of the dysfunction of the dog management system. We don't even expect it to work anymore.

Barking Dogs a Major Source of Noise Complaint in Northern Ireland
Summary: This article, which originated with the BBC, is based on a compilation of all the noise complaints registered with the 26 councils in Northern Ireland during the years 2003 and 2004. Using that information, it sets forth a noise profile of that region for those two years.

The article states that barking dogs and amplified music were the most complained about noise irritants in Northern Ireland during that time period.

Man Responding to Bark of Normally Quiet Dogs, Saves Family From Fire
Summary: This is an ageless, heart-warming tale: vigilant dogs sound the alarm and save their human family. The story is all the more poignant because the dogs that saved the humans then went on to perish in the fire.

But as you read the story, remember that the family survived only because a human responded to the barking of the dogs. If the animals had been chronic barkers, the man of the house might well have dismissed their warning barks as just being business as usual, and rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep, while his family died in the flames.

This page is part of the Barking Dog News and barkingdogs.net