BARKING dogs have cost a man and wife £1,280 each after being found guilty of failing to comply with a noise abatement notice.
This is the second time Robert and Susan Leigh, of Faraway Meadow, Cross O Th Hill Road, Nomansheath, near Malpas, have breached the notice issued in 2006 after complaints.
City magistrates heard their two Weimaraner gun dogs ‘Bonnie’ and ‘Becky’ were making neighbours’ lives a misery due to their loud, high pitched and prolonged barking and whining.
Neighbour Graham Hillier, told the court the dogs were often kept in a dog run.
He said: “If you are in the garden it’s unbearably loud. We normally either go back into the house or to the rear garden where the noise is lessened but still, I would say, a nuisance.”
Mr Hillier said he had been woken early by the dogs who also spoiled the enjoyment of listening to music or watching TV even with the windows closed.
Neighbour John Carter, said: “It’s difficult being able to concentrate on anything whether reading, gardening or working in my workshop. Invariably it results in me being forced to go out and get some respite from it.”
Mr Carter, who had no problem with other neighbours’ dogs, added: “You expect normal noise from a dog bark but this is not a natural sound. It’s a very high-pitched noise, it’s trill, it’s almost like a howling noise.”
Mother-of-two Michelle Cooper, who has double glazing and wears earplugs at night, said she and her eight-year-old daughter had been woken by the dogs in the early hours.
Mrs Cooper said of her daughter: “She’s tired all the time – tired and grouchy when I try to wake her.”
Retired teacher Mr Leigh, 71, claimed his dogs rarely barked. Since the abatement order, the dogs, who were “very fond of human company”, had been brought indoors and someone was always with them.
Former nurse Mrs Leigh, 58, who admitted the dogs had been “mischievous” as puppies said they had grown up now but conceded they did bark “a couple” of times when a delivery truck went past the house twice a day.
The couple, who denied the charges, were found guilty of failing to comply with the notice on 10 occasions between last September and February. Each was fined £500, with £765 costs plus a £15 victim surcharge. Future breaches will cost them £50 each on a daily basis.
