Muncie, IN Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Muncie's kennel law, Section 90.23, requires anyone keeping and maintaining a kennel to buy an annual $50.00 kennel license from the animal care and services department by January 30 each year, approved by both the department director and the city building commissioner, and to keep the kennel compliant with the zoning ordinance. The same section obligates the owner to keep the kennel clean and sanitary and to reasonably restrain dogs and cats from annoying the neighborhood or the general public with loud, frequent or habitual barking, yelping or howling.

Noise that rises to a public nuisance beyond the kennel context falls under the chapter's general nuisance rule, Section 90.14, which bars any owner, temporary caretaker or colony caretaker from failing to exercise due care and control of an animal to prevent it from becoming a public nuisance. An animal control officer can issue a notice of ordinance violation, and the accused owner may pay the assessed penalty to animal care and services within 72 hours to close the matter; unresolved cases go to a court of competent jurisdiction.

Fines start at $50.00 for a first offense and climb by $50.00 for each later offense, though the rate resets to the first-offense level if the owner stays violation-free for 12 consecutive months. The former stand-alone barking ordinance, once numbered Section 90.14 under Ordinance No. 16-03, was repealed and replaced by the current nuisance language through Ordinance No. 51-12 in January 2013.