The Sounds of Change : Ojai: A squabble over barking dogs on what was once a sprawling ranch, some say, is really a battle between rural and suburban lifestyles.

A neighborhood noise squabble in Ojai is far more than a dispute over a pair of barking dogs, local officials and others say.

The real issue, they say, is the creeping urbanization of the Ojai Valley.

The long-running argument pits Nancy Rains, who has raised horses and other animals at her family’s ranch-style home on Daly Street for more than 40 years, against a group of suburbanites living around her.

The neighbors, who have long argued that parts of Rains’ rural lifestyle constitute a public nuisance, won a restraining order against two of Rains’ four dogs in July after pleading their case before a Ventura County Animal Regulation hearing officer.

Last week, almost nine months after Rains failed to comply with the mitigation steps ordered during the canine court hearing, animal regulation officers issued an ultimatum.

Rains could remove the dogs--a small, white mixed-breed terrier named Benji, and a small, black-and-brown mixed terrier named Bette--the officials said, or the animals would be impounded and destroyed.

Although Rains and her cousin Brian Keith threatened to physically resist anyone who tried to take the dogs, the two animals were given to friends last week.

Now, Rains and Keith insist that they were wronged, saying intolerance on their neighbors’ part is to blame.

“I plan to go get two more dogs,” Rains, a 45-year-old disabled retail worker, said during an interview last week.

“They’ve made this a war, and I’m not giving up,” she said, pointing at the row of homes abutting her property. “I don’t think they’ll stop until there’s nothing left on this property.”

Ojai officials, who have tried to stay neutral throughout the dog dispute, concede that Rains could be right on this point.

“From the history and nature of the complaints, I have no reason to believe the problems there will stop,” said Ojai code enforcement officer Elaine Willman.

“The way I characterize that area is that it is one of the last battlefields between the urban and rural lifestyle in our community.”

All parties say the dispute has been influenced greatly by the radical changes that have taken place in the neighborhood, which was once a sprawling ranch held by the Rains family, one of Ventura County’s oldest.

Besides the Daly Ranch, the family at one time owned several retail stores, including a department store that still operates in Ojai.

When asked, Rains weaves stories about the old days on the ranch, when horses roamed the large parcels of land now dotted with large, two-story homes in all directions.

The subdivision came into existence gradually, as family members sold off portions of the ranch.

At the same time, a row of ranch-style homes with stunning views of the Topa Topa Mountains was built just beyond the ranch property line, on a street aptly named Pleasant Avenue.

During interviews in their homes, the neighbors also reminisced about the old days.

Ian Atkinson, whose Pleasant Avenue home abuts the ranch, said his children spent more time riding horses and playing with dogs in the Rains back yard than they did at their own home some days.

But that was when Nancy Rains--then a teen-ager who often baby-sat for him and his wife, Carol--still lived with her mother, Atkinson said.

“When her mom was alive, well, things were better then,” Atkinson said. “Nancy would talk to us then.”

Atkinson is one of three Pleasant Avenue residents who filed complaints about the dog noises. It is one of many disputes that he has had with Rains in the past eight years.

The neighbors concede that there is a history of complaints because of the opposition between their suburban lifestyle and Rains’ ranching tradition.

“There’s no question that she still thinks of the area as farmland,” Atkinson said.

However, Carol Atkinson said there is no reason for Rains to blame her problems on the neighbors.

“If you don’t want neighbors, don’t sell your land,” she said.

Hillard agreed: “It’s true that her house was here before any of the others, and I think she still feels like she’s being intruded upon.”

While admitting that the dogs do make noise, Keith said many other dogs in the neighborhood also bark.

People who move to the area should expect some animal noise because of the city’s traditionally rural character, he said.

“Come on, this is Ojai,” he said. “That’s why we live here.”

Although he has also fought Rains over the number of horses she kept in her stables and the flies and dust from the horses and the chickens that wander from her property, it is the dog issue that he says has most disturbed his quality of life.

“I don’t think any neighbor should be woke up six or eight times a night because of a neighbor’s dogs,” Atkinson said. “I shouldn’t have to live with that.”

Atkinson’s next-door neighbor, John Hillard, has also had a fair share of run-ins with Rains. Besides filing a complaint over the dogs, Hillard, a 29-year resident of Pleasant Avenue, brought his neighbor before the Ojai City Council over the 10-foot hedge separating their homes.

“I’ve tried for years to get her to trim that hedge, because the city ordinance says they can’t be over six feet high,” he said. “I have a heck of a time getting any sun on my garden because of that.”

The City Council directed Hillard to consult with Rains over their differences, but he said: “You can’t talk to her. She won’t listen.”

Rains rebuts her neighbors’ charges, insisting that she is a victim of their intolerance.

“What are my rights in all of this?” she demanded, walking through her overgrown back yard to the stable where she keeps three horses.

“Even if we complied with everything they asked of us, these neighbors are still going to complain,” said cousin Keith, a burly, mustachioed ex-U.S. Ranger who has lived with Rains for about four years. “If it’s not the dogs, it’ll be something else.”