Barking Dog Resolution Program

Whether it is your dog or your neighbors', it is unlawful for a dog owner to allow a dog to cause a continuous annoyance by making prolonged sounds that can be heard by neighbors.

Continuous annoyance is defined in the county code as:

• unreasonable annoyance, alarm or noise disturbance to any person by barking, whining, screeching, howling or making other sounds, which may be heard beyond the boundary of the owner's or keeper's property either as:
  • an episode of continuous noise lasting for a minimum of 30 minutes or
  • repeated episodes of intermittent noise lasting for a minimum of 45 minutes within a 24-hour period.

Our Barking Resolution Program helps solve barking conflicts through mediation and agreement. Our goal is to resolve the issue as quickly and amicably as possible with both the complainant and the dog owner.

*This code and program is applied in unincorporated Clackamas County, please contact your local jurisdiction for information if you reside within city limits.

Submitting a complaint

You can submit a complaint about a barking dog, or call 503-655-8628 for more information. Anonymous complaints are not accepted.

When submitting a complaint, you must submit the following information:

• a date, time and duration of the barking or other noise,
• the dog owner's address and
• your contact information.

We will then send the dog owner a letter informing them that we have received a barking complaint. We'll explain the barking ordinance and include a packet of information on how to help reduce barking. We will also send you a copy of the letter and a barking log.

The dog owner will have 10 days to try to fix the problem.

If the problem isn't resolved in the time allowed by the ordinance, we will ask you to keep a log after those 10 days, tracking when and how long the dog(s) bark and submit a second barking complaint. From there we move to mediation with the Dispute Resolution Center.

If violations continue, the report may be referred to a Dog Services officer for further investigation and possible citation.