Lodi, CA Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Section 9.24.040 of the Lodi Municipal Code makes it unlawful for anyone to keep or maintain, or to allow to be kept or maintained on property they own, occupy or control, any animal whose frequent or long-continued noise disturbs or causes discomfort to a reasonable person of normal noise sensitivity. The ordinance defines the trigger precisely rather than leaving it to complaint volume alone: 'frequent or long-continued noise' means noise that is essentially continuous for ten minutes in the aggregate during any sixty-minute period, so intermittent barking spread thin across an hour does not automatically qualify, but a sustained ten-minute stretch does. The section sits inside Chapter 9.24, Noise Regulation, alongside the chapter's definitions in Section 9.24.010 and its general nuisance-noise standard in Section 9.24.020, and it operates independently of those provisions, meaning animal noise does not need a separate sound-level reading to be cited.

Section 9.24.040 exempts any kennel, cattery or animal hospital operated legally within the city, recognizing that licensed animal-care businesses generate more animal noise as a normal incident of their operation. For everyone else, a violation of the chapter is an infraction under Section 9.24.060, carrying a fine capped at $250, and Section 9.24.070 gives enforcement authority to any peace officer or to the director of community development or a designee. Because the standard focuses on duration rather than decibel level, an officer or animal control investigator documenting ten cumulative minutes of continuous barking within an hour, corroborated by a neighbor's complaint, can support a citation without specialized sound-measuring equipment.