Royal Oak, MI Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Section 195-14A, part of the 1973 Dog Ordinance as amended in 2003 and 2013, prohibits any person from harboring or keeping a dog that, by loud, frequent or habitual barking, yelping or howling, causes a serious annoyance to the neighborhood or to people passing to and fro upon the streets. The same section, in Subsection B, separately addresses dogs known or suspected of having rabies, requiring an owner to surrender a suspect dog to the Animal Control Officer for a ten-day observation period, which may occur at a veterinarian, an approved nonprofit shelter, or the owner's home with Animal Control's approval.

Complaints about a chronically barking dog are investigated by the Royal Oak Animal Control Officer, and enforcement of § 195-14A follows the general penalty structure of Chapter 195, Article III, Dogs, since the barking provision is not one of the specifically carved-out exceptions in § 195-22B, which lists only sanitation violations under § 195-15 for graduated civil-infraction fines. A separate general public-nuisance provision, § 484-13, bars keeping any animal, bird or bee that causes annoyance in the neighborhood by barking, howling, braying, crowing or other characteristic sounds, giving code enforcement an alternative charge for chronic animal noise outside the dog-specific chapter.

Because § 195-14 requires the barking to be loud, frequent or habitual and to cause serious annoyance, a single bark or an isolated incident does not violate the section; the standard turns on a pattern of noise that disturbs the surrounding neighborhood or street.