WORSE THAN HIS BITE.(The Talk of the Town)(New York City noise ordinance sets limit on the barking of dogs)

Good schools, abundant day-care options, probably more discarded chicken bones per block than you'll find in any other town: the relative lack of green space notwithstanding, it was possible, until recently, to consider New York City an excellent place for dogs. That may soon change, however, now that Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a series of new noise-control amendments. Along with curtailing the excesses of ice-cream-truck drivers and dub-reggae enthusiasts, his plan calls for an enforced limit of ten minutes--five minutes at night--when it comes to barking dogs. After that, a dog's owner may be deemed in violation of the law and issued a ticket or a fine.

"There have typically been a lot of dog complaints to the 311 line," Jordan Barowitz, the Mayor's spokesman, explained the other day. "Last month, for instance, there were eleven hundred and forty-nine calls under the category 'animal noise.' And then, let's see here, 'animal noise, chronic': four hundred and fourteen. That month was a bit heavier than April. September, October, it's very high. It drops in November, but it bounces back up in December. Maybe they get excited about the holidays."

Currently, the city's noise code reads, "No person shall permit an animal, including a bird, under his or her control to cause unnecessary noise." This, needless to say, is a little vague. "It produces problems from an enforcement standpoint," Barowitz said. The city's Department of Environmental Protection, which drafted the proposed legislation, examined the laws in several other cities before deciding on the ten-minute rule. Charles Sturcken, the D.E.P.'s public-affairs director, said, "Seattle has some of the more advanced measures in the country. Hawaii apparently has very quiet noise codes. Atlanta has a ten-minute-duration law anytime for barking, or up to half an hour for intermittent barking. Palo Alto, it's also ten minutes. We thought that was reasonable."

Reasonable for people, maybe. To a dog, the ten- and five-minute limits might seem arbitrary, and a little harsh: even in dog years, five minutes of barking is thirty-five minutes, which falls just short of the standard therapeutic hour. What's more, the Mayor's proposal ignores the archetype of the barking dog as hero ("Lassie, Dad's hurt! Get help!"), and the fact that raising a ruckus is what a lot of dogs have been bred to do.

Some breeds are more vocal than ...