While noise is a major factor in neighbor pet disputes, this chapter focuses more widely on pet ownership, the realities of neighborhood living, and the ridiculous maze complainants must navigate to bring justice to pet-owning neighbors who continue their un-neighborly behavior long after it’s been brought to their attention in a positive way.

And that maze, of course, is not one that you can learn your way through in one town and apply your knowledge elsewhere. Each town, township, borough and county has its own unique ways of handling, mishandling or avoiding complaints and doling out justice when it comes to pet complaints. Many local political leaders don’t consider animal issues important enough for there to be any standards and practices on the books at all.

“It’s a confusing mess,” Arkow says, about who’s responsible for what issue from one municipality to another. It may be the police, or zoning, or licensing, or the health department, or any of a dozen other town operations, or a division within one or more departments, that you’re supposed to call. And then, responsibilities for policing pets and handling complaints are sometimes shifted from one department to another without notice. In some cases, for-profit animal control agencies are contracted by towns to handle everything from neighbor pet complaints to squirrels caught in attics.

Seldom is the person complaining about his neighbor’s pet treated by authorities like a solid citizen who deserves results. Complaints seem to be taken almost personally by some authorities – mainly because they 1) don’t want the added work or 2) view such complaints from the people who pay taxes to be served by their local government as “petty.”

Arkow, who is also director of “The Link” with the American Humane Association (see AmericanHumane.org) and chairs the Animal Abuse & Family Violence Prevention Project with The Latham Foundation, recommends checking with a municipality’s clerk to learn the area’s laws and procedures for handling complaints.

Police are typically not very useful in pet problem resolution, unless a vicious dog is chewing off your arm at the given moment you call. In fact, no agency is likely to be particularly helpful, Arkow says, until you use these six magic words: “I Want To File A Complaint.”