Hannah Metzger
Audio By Carbonatix
For over a year, barking has been the soundtrack of John’s life. Whenever a car or a pedestrian passes through his Sunnyside neighborhood, high-pitched yelps erupt from a neighbor’s dog, John claims. The noise often starts before the sun rises and goes into the night, piercing through headphones and even inside his home.
“It’s inescapable,” says John, who asked not to use his real name for fear of retaliation. “You’ve heard annoying barking dogs; imagine the worst-case scenario. It’s that.”
John complained to 311 twice during the summer of 2024. Denver Animal Protection first mailed the neighbor a notice, then invited John and his neighbor to engage in third-party mediation to talk through the barking problem in person. John declined. The barking continued. In August 2025, John submitted another complaint, but DAP informed him that it would not accept any further complaints or investigate the matter unless John agreed to mediation.
Since 2012, DAP has required complainants to engage in free community mediation with dog owners before pursuing citations for excessive barking. In the eight years before mediation became mandatory, the city issued 393 citations for barking dogs. In the last eight years, it has issued 53 citations — an 87 percent decrease, according to data from the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment.
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So far this year, no citations have been issued for barking dogs, according to DDPHE.
“There’s no way that every dog in town is behaving well enough that they haven’t issued a single citation. That’s absurd,” John says. “Offenders aren’t being held accountable, while innocent citizens who are having their rights violated are being forced to jump through hoops.”
City officials view the lack of citations as a win.
“We want to try and solve things at the lowest level possible and not criminalize things unnecessarily,” says DAP Lieutenant Josh Rolfe. “It really is an issue between neighbors. It makes good sense to me why this process exists, so that we can try to get resolutions in the community without sending people through the criminal justice system.”
For cases in which both parties agreed to participate, 95 percent of mediations were successful, according to DDPHE data from 2013 to 2025. Mediations are considered successful when both participants sign a written agreement to resolve the dispute, such as the dog owner agreeing to seek training for their pet, or the complainant agreeing to text the owner when their dog’s barking is getting out of hand.
However, nearly one-third of cases were essentially dropped once the mediation requirement was made known. Since 2013, parties in 31 percent of cases either refused mediation, failed to show up or did not respond to officials.
Why Was Dog Barking Mediation Added?
According to Rolfe, DAP began requiring mediation in 2012 at the request of Denver courts, which were “overburdened” with dog barking complaints that were often difficult to prove and ultimately got dismissed.
Denver County Court spokesperson Carolyn Tyler says the courts “requested an intermediary step but did not mandate mediation.” Ryann Money, a DDPHE spokesperson, says there was no formal mandate, but the suggestion arose from conversations with the courts and the City Attorney’s Office.
“The CAO worked closely with DAP several years ago to develop a different process for barking dog complaints because a criminal citation doesn’t necessarily fix the problem,” says Melissa Sisneros, spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office. “Many of those cases ended up with a sentence that required mediation so that the parties could work out a resolution of the issue among themselves. …The process is appropriate and legally sound.”
In Denver, it is unlawful for dog owners to fail to prevent “loud and persistent or habitual barking, howling, or yelping” that disturbs a person or neighborhood.
The municipal code does not include a requirement for mediation; it notes that a citation shall be issued if an animal protection officer personally witnesses a violation, if two people from separate households complain, or if one person complains and provides “competent evidence” to prove the violation.
“DAP is conditioning enforcement of the law on participation in an external mediation process, which has no basis in ordinance or municipal code,” John argues. “The law is being broken and the city — unless I engage and spend my time and my energy on [mediation] — refuses to do anything about it. It feels like the opposite of the way government is supposed to work.”
Though it is not written in statute, Rolfe claims that mediation is a common preliminary step for neighbor disputes. As an example, he points to the Denver Police Department, saying it often refers neighborhood noise and trespassing complaints to mediation.
A spokesperson for DPD confirms that the department sometimes uses third-party mediators “to assist with certain neighbor disputes.” However, unlike how DAP handles barking complaints, DPD’s mediation is not mandatory to pursue legal action. “It is not a requirement to take this step prior to issuing a citation,” the spokesperson explains.
But even when cases go to court, Rolfe says it is extremely difficult to prove that barking qualifies as unlawful. Based on prior rulings, he says complainants typically need evidence of five to ten minutes of sustained barking to establish a violation.
“Mediation creates a common understanding of what actually is a problem and just tries to make sure they’re good neighbors to each other,” Rolfe says. “Overall, I think that the process is working very well.”
Why Not Participate?
John says he doesn’t want to engage in mediation because he doesn’t want his neighbor to know he filed the complaints, describing the neighbor as combative and hostile.
After DAP sent a warning letter in response to John’s first report, he claims that the neighbor hung the letter on his fence with a handwritten sign that read, “Dog Barking Complaint: Your Move.” John alleges that his neighbor also often gets into arguments with passersby on the street who comment on his political yard signs.
“If it was a neighbor I knew, I would’ve already spoken to them [about the barking],” John says. “The last thing I want is a hostile situation with a neighbor. I’d rather put up with a barking dog than have this guy, who has a history of instigating with people, looking for a reason to start something with me.”
Rolfe notes that even if mediation weren’t required, the identity of the complainant would be revealed to the dog owner in court if DAP were to seek a criminal citation. But John argues that in court, he could be afforded legal protections against intimidation and harassment by the owner.
The city’s third-party mediation services are provided by Find Solutions. President Alexandra Katz says mediators are trained to “quickly attend to any action by any party that may seem like intimidation or harassment.”
“We stress in our intake call and in our opening that in order for mediation to be successful, it must be a place where all participants feel safe,” Katz says. “It is our mediator’s responsibility to ensure that this is the case, and they do. Mediated conversations result in the parties finding common ground; therefore, intimidation and harassment are no longer a concern.”
Rolfe also stresses that the mediation doesn’t have to be successful, but the complainant is required to attempt the process “in good faith” before DAP will consider taking the matter to court. If the complainant agrees to mediation but the dog owner refuses, DAP will still move forward with considering a citation.
Even so, the process leaves residents like John feeling hounded.
“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not the one breaking the law,” John says. “But I guess I’m just going to have to deal with the barking dog indefinitely.”
