I'm in Charles city Iowa.  City ordinance 55.08. If you ever had to deal with this ordinance and got some clarification on this ordinance id like to hear your input.

It's unlawful for the owner to allow or permit such a dog to cause a serious annoyance or disturbance to any person or persons by Frequent and habitual barking, yelping, howling.  

Is letting them outside with the possibility of them barking, yelping, howling considered allowing and or permitting them to do so?

What would be considered a serious annoyance?  

And what is considered frequent or habitual?  How much barking is a dog allowed to do?  None? 5 minutes worth?

I can't get ahold of a lawyer and the local police officer has no definitive answer on it.

Itd like it's open to interpretation.

If the neighbors complain it’s an annoyance. Especially if more than one complains more than once.  The cops aren’t looking for barking dogs.

This. Dogs bark. It's gonna happen.

If your dog barks enough to piss off the neighbors and you don't try to calm it down, you're "allowing" it.

If the same dog barks a couple times at a squirrel you don't have much to worry about.

Ok. When they first start barking we make them stop and come in. Every time the police have been to our house when the neighbor calls the police they have been inside.  One time an officer came out when one dog literally barked twice. I got him in and five minutes later a police officer was at our door. Now we're paranoid about our dogs barking at all. One time, two times,  how much can a dog bark before it's a nuisance?  I asked the officer this and he said if the neighbor calls and complains, it's a nuisance.  So our neighbor can call and complain for any reason. I have statements from every neighbor within 200 feet of us signed, dated with their addresses saying they do not think our dogs are a problem, but the information I found is that's considered heresay.  So far, I have two neighbors who live across the ally which is the next closest neighbor willing to come to court on our behalf.  This is a simple misdemeanor and the neighbor complaining isn't required to be there unl the city wants to bring in witnesses of their own.  I'm hoping they don't call him to be there.

It's only one neighbor complaining. I got signed statements from every single neighbor within 200 feet of us stating they don't see our dogs as a problem or a nuisance.

Damn, the cops come out for a barking dog whete you're at? I can't even get the sheriff's department out here when my neighbor let's her 10 dogs run rampant throughout the neighborhood.

Charles city.  The only dogs our other neighbors complained about was his dogs.  They would also run rampant though our neighborhood. No one ever called the police on him tho. We had issues with his dogs coming into our yard pooping and peeing and terrorizing our little dog we had at the time. Never once we complain called the police. Because we weren't going to be the. Karen of the neighborhood. But apparently he is. He even was upset that we put up a privacy fence to keep our dogs in and his dogs out.

Your neighbor sounds like a pest.

Pick up some bark collars if shit persists.

Move to Alta Vista. Not a long drive and it's quiet. Biggest problem currently is my neighbors playing Mexican polka music in their cars too loud, while they sit on the picnic tables listening.

I can live with that to not live in Mason City.

They all got bark collars and they work for the most part unless they start playing really rough and one will let out a couple barks then stop.

I got a couple co workers who live there.  They had a English mastiff and have a Dane mastiff.