Dubuque, IA Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Section 7-6B-1's NUISANCE definition lists four ways a dog or cat crosses into nuisance territory: soiling or defecating on property other than the owner's without prompt cleanup, causing unsanitary, dangerous, or offensive conditions, causing a disturbance by excessive barking or other noisemaking that can be heard from a position in the public right-of-way, or chasing vehicles or molesting, attacking, or interfering with people or other animals off the owner's premises. Section 7-6B-5 then supplies the operative prohibition: it is unlawful for any owner or keeper to permit a dog or cat to commit a nuisance, meaning a barking complaint that meets the right-of-way audibility test is independently enforceable without needing a separate noise-decibel measurement.

The provision, carried forward from Ordinance 76-08 in 2008, ties directly into the City's impoundment and enforcement structure in Article B: repeated nuisance conduct can support a harboring or at-large enforcement action alongside a straight nuisance citation, and the Dubuque Regional Humane Society, which handles animal control by contract, is the practical point of contact for a barking complaint before it reaches police or municipal court. Because the standard is whether the noise is audible from the right-of-way rather than a fixed decibel level, enforcement turns on an officer's or complainant's on-scene observation rather than a metered reading.