Porter County, IN Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Porter County Code of Ordinances Sec. 12-130, adopted by Ord. No. 010, sits in Article VI, Noise Control, of Chapter 12, Health and Safety. It declares that any animal causing serious annoyance or disturbance to a neighborhood or its residents through loud, frequent, habitual or continual barking, howling, yelping or other noise is a nuisance, and it is unlawful for any person to keep such an animal within the unincorporated areas of the county; incorporated towns and cities such as Valparaiso, Portage and Chesterton write their own noise codes.

The Porter County Sheriff's Department is the enforcing agency named in subsection (b). 00 fine, and each day the barking nuisance continues or is permitted to continue counts as a separate cause of action, so repeated failures to correct the problem multiply the fine quickly. The ordinance also gives the sheriff's department a seizure remedy: once a citation has been issued, the county animal shelter may seize and detain the offending animal at the sheriff's department's request. If an animal is seized, the owner must reimburse the animal shelter for the costs of seizing and detaining it before the animal can be reclaimed, on top of the underlying fine.

Because the section only reaches unincorporated Porter County, residents inside an incorporated town or city must check that municipality's own animal-noise chapter rather than this county code section.