Our local newspaper just shared this wonderful news:
Pima Animal Care drops barking dog mediation contract
Quoting from the story:
“Reviewing five years of ‘barking’ complaints we could demonstrate no decrease in the number of complaints or related citations that correlated in any way with our contract expenditures in this area,” Health Department Director Dr. Francisco Garcia wrote in a July 8 letter.
So, there you have it. The health department director is admitting that barking dog mediation was a waste of taxpayer dollars. Here's hoping that other jurisdictions come to the same conclusion.
Not that I'm against mediation. It does work when both parties are interested in achieving a positive result. For barking dog disputes? Uh-uh.
In these cases, the mediation involves a perpetrator (owner of the robo-barking dog) and a victim (the neighbor who's on the receiving end of the noise).
In other words, it's bullying.
And you can't mediate with bullies. You need to use the power of law enforcement -- and civil and criminal penalties -- to get the bullying to stop.
My previous posts on this topic:
Thanks to let us know, Quiet Barking Dogs.
ReplyDeleteHopefully some other municipalities will listen to reason and instead Do their job, like you said, penalising the bullies (criminals I'd say), not the victims.
The answer to dog barking is owner education and steep, quickly increasing fines finally resulting in the forced wearing of a bark control collar, and if that fails surgical debarking with the bill sent to the dog owner.
ReplyDelete