Dog nuisance

When taking your dog out for a walk it is important to understand and prepare for how your pet may interact with other people and animals.

Measures such as keeping your dog on a lead when it's near roads and other animals and training your dog in simple obedience can go a long way to helping prevent any problems before they occur.

While you are not required to keep your dog on a lead at all times, you may be required to put your dog on a lead by an authorised officer if it is causing a nuisance. See dog control for details.

Barking dogs

We investigate complaints involving noise from dogs. In some circumstances, noise from dogs may be classified as a statutory nuisance and can be investigated under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

There can be many causes and solutions to barking. Simple good practice such as feeding your dogs at regular times with a healthy, balanced diet and ensuring they have plenty of exercise can greatly help to prevent or resolve issues like this.

How to report a nuisance or barking dog

To report a nuisance dog either contact us or visit the Civic Centre.

Information we will need from you includes:

  • your full name
  • your full address including your postcode
  • your home telephone number
  • the address where the dog resides.

We recommend, where possible, that if you are having problems with noise created by a neighbour's dog, you should attempt to discuss the situation with your neighbour.

If you have already tried this approach and there has been no improvement, or if you feel unable to approach your neighbour directly, then we will write to the owner of the dog to advise them of the complaint. To give us as much information as possible, a diary sheet will be sent to you to record details of when the dog is barking, and for how long.

If the owner of the dog contacts us requesting help and advice, we will make arrangements to visit them.