Lakeland, FL Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Chapter 10's animal-keeping rule reaches beyond distance requirements into how an animal is kept. ' Because the subsection covers 'any fowl or animal' rather than naming dogs specifically, a persistently barking dog whose noise is offensive to an ordinary neighbor falls under the same standard used against noisy or foul-smelling livestock and fowl elsewhere in the chapter. There is no numeric decibel threshold or time-of-day cutoff; the test is whether the noise would offend 'persons of ordinary sensibilities,' a fact question the code enforcement board resolves case by case at a hearing under § 2-98.

05 and has not been substantively rewritten since. Enforcement runs through the same code enforcement board process as other Chapter 10 violations, since § 2-94(9) lists 'Animals, chapter 10' among the codes the board has jurisdiction to enforce, and a code inspector must first give the owner reasonable time to correct the problem before the case can go to a hearing, unless it is a repeat violation under § 2-97(c).