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Norwegian Town Plans Curfew for Dogs

Posted on: Friday, 5 May 2006, 09:00 CDT

OSLO, Norway - A small Norwegian town has grown so tired of its barking dogs that it plans to pass a curfew forbidding noisy animals from leaving their homes late at night, an official said Friday.

Erik Schult, the head of forestry for the municipality of Fjell in western Norway, has proposed a new regulation stating that "barking dogs have to be indoors 10 p.m. at the latest every weekday."

Schult said the curfew is aimed to prevent noisy dogs from keeping neighbors awake by barking all night, although it will not make it illegal to take quiet dogs on a late-night walk.

"It is the notorious yelping dogs that we are aiming at," Schult said. "Those that stay out and bark through the night."

Dog owners who violate the curfew will face a fine, he said.

Schult said the city council will vote on the curfew next week and "surely approve it, even if at first they thought it was an April Fools' joke."

An informal opinion poll undertaken by a local newspaper showed that 55 percent of the locals supported the initiative.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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