City must stop nuisance barking

Fifteen months have gone by since I last submitted a letter regarding a neighbor that has two large German shepherds that bark incessantly day and night. This situation has gone on now for three years. We have attempted to work with ASPCA, the city attorney’s office, the Police Department and with the dogs’ owner himself. All of our efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

The ASPCA will no longer send anyone out. They say, “We know the dogs are barking, call the police.” We call the police. They say, “We know the dogs are barking, we get calls all the time on the address in question, call the ASPCA.”

For three years we have submitted logs documenting the days and hours of the barking but we get the same runaround. Imagine having to deal with constant barking for hours on end, being awakened early in the morning and going to bed at night with two dogs barking as if they were in attack mode. Neighbors are constantly screaming from their properties, “someone shut those dogs up!” Neighbors can’t use their backyards and windows have to be shut in hopes of mitigating some of the noise. The neighbors have complied with all of the requirements from the ASPCA, turning in hours upon hours of logs documenting the barking, but to no avail.

It is sad that we have a law on the books in Glendale regarding nuisance barking but the city will not enforce it. How many more hours and days must we endure this torture before our city officials will act? It is my hope that other neighbors affected by nuisance barkers write in and demand that the city help us.

Tim Ragus
Glendale