Rockingham County, VA Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

2 targets barking specifically, separate from the county's general nuisance and cruelty provisions, and applies only within an unincorporated town, village, subdivision or other densely populated area rather than to open rural land generally. The standard is not a decibel limit or a fixed number of minutes; it asks whether the barking, by its manner or frequency, annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the health, safety or welfare of another person. Enforcement is left to the judgment of the officer who responds to a complaint: either an animal control officer or a sheriff's deputy investigates and then decides, in that instance, whether the section has been violated and whether the appropriate response is a warning or a citation.

A conviction is a Class four misdemeanor, the lowest misdemeanor class under Virginia law, carrying only a fine and no jail exposure. The section carves out one exemption: a dog kennel operating under a special use permit issued by the county is exempt from the barking-dog rule altogether, recognizing that a permitted kennel's noise is already addressed through its land-use conditions rather than through a per-complaint nuisance citation.