Colusa County, CA Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Chapter 13 of the Colusa County Code (Ord. No. 730) does not contain a section that names dogs or barking specifically. Instead, persistent animal noise is addressed through the general prohibition in Section 13-17, which makes it 'unlawful for any person to willfully make or continue, or cause to be made or continued, any noise which unreasonably disturbs the peace and quiet of any neighborhood.' Section 13-17(b) sets the evidentiary standard: a complaint of unreasonable noise is a prima facie violation if there is one complaint plus independent corroboration by a sheriff's department employee, or three distinct complaints from two affected premises bothered by the same source. Section 13-17(c) lists the factors deputies weigh, including loudness, pitch, duration, time of day, necessity of the noise, and background noise. The objective decibel limits in Table No. 1 (Section 13-6) also apply at the complainant's property plane: 50 dBA at night and 55 dBA daytime for residential land use. Because the county does not publish a dog-specific barking ordinance in its noise chapter, complaints in unincorporated areas typically proceed under Section 13-17 and through the county's animal services and code-compliance processes rather than a numeric bark-duration rule.