WHOS POOP IS IT?

Last evening I went to a meeting to determine if Viewmount Park, the local park I take the girls to, should have an official off leash area. No, it does not. Yes, I off leash my dogs there. Yes, that's a violation of a local bylaw. Go ahead, make the call. I'll just sit here and wait for CICIS, the Mounties, the local SWAT and the Dept of Who Gives A Fuck to come arrest me.
It was a lively little debate. You would expect there to be two main camps: The Yes to the Offleash area camp and the No to the Offleash area camp. Of course, it never breaks down that way. It was really Yes to dogs or No to dogs. On leash, off leash, anyway except on a bun, we don't want your dogs. Funny how some of them professed to have dogs of their own. Of course, the dogs in question are probably the size of my shoe, are named Princess Chloe Mummy's Sucky Rat Dog and never go outside anyway ... OK, that was hostile .. but read on, you may learn why.

People were very passionate about the issue. Well, not the issue really; the issue at hand was whether or not there should be a fenced area where people could legally off leash their dogs. Yes people were opposed to that. But a lot of people were opposed to the ideas of dogs period, on or off leash.

Viewmount is not a huge park, but neither is it tiny. It is about five acres. Now it has a lot in it, a playground, tennis court, baseball diamond. There are paved walkways that link to neighboring streets. It is a heavy usage park. That's why I understand the issue, sometimes, when the dogs are running free, but my closest alternative is a good 20 minute walk away or a drive through some really dreadful streets.

So I do get that people feel intimidated by the dogs, there are of course some butt head dog owners who are not in control of their dogs and there are some filthy pigs who don't clean up after their dogs. So I would think that the idea of an enclosed area, a little off to the side, where the dogs would be off leash, would be a welcome compromise .. well, that seemed a foreign word at the meeting

There was a loud, very vocal group who did not want the dogs there. The common excuse was some danger to their children. Again, if the dogs are behind a fence, with gates, I don't see the danger Frankly, I don't know why we just don't enclose playgrounds, have gates and maybe medal detectors and armed guards at the gates .... seriously, they made the situation sound that dire. Like if a dog breathed on a kid, the youngster would suffer some permanent damage. OK, some doggie breath is pretty nasty, but let's face it, so is the breath of some humans

Another big complaint was the dog shit. No argument, that park gets really disgusting, especially during the winter where these doltish owners seem to think that dog poo will melt away with the snow. But if you have an enclosed, demarked area, it gives people less excuse not to pick up. It does happen, I've stepped into dog shit in an offleash area, but I'm a dog owner and chose to enter that space

There were many suggestions to have an off leash area elsewhere, way far away, and the implication was clear: Take all the dogs there and keep them out of our park. NIMBY is Not in My Backyard. This is NDIMW .. No Dogs in My World. Sorry folks, that just ain't going to happen

I know some of this is fear, I've written about this before. But you would think your fear would be somewhat placated by having the dogs enclosed; nope, we need them gone, just gone. Hey, you know, I have a deep seeded fear of Conservatives do we think we could .. um .. wow, if only

There was no compromise in these people. Even when most of the audience, dog owners included, thought the City's proposed location for the offleash would interfere with the park too much and we had it moved, the dog haters just wouldn't let up

A pretty valid point was made about the whole procedure though. A young dog hating mom kept asking how the process ever got started and how it could be halted. It turns out that under the current system, one person (and no it wasn't me) proposed the area and the city is going right ahead with it; yet there seemed no concrete way to stop it. No vote was taken at the meeting and although there was some vague noise about "taking the pulse" people were told that even if a hundred anti dogites showed up, it really wouldn't matter. The smirking city counsellor who showed up for ten minutes merely said "You already had your vote, last election" Honest to god, he actually said it. Then Mr Howard Moscoe waved his hands and left early

That kind of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Our current political system seems to have evolved into a self aware, self serving beast that prowls right on, regardless of us and NOT regarding us for one moment. These people were frustrated by the system and I can't blame them

On the other hand I was dismayed by their lack of willingness to compromise. I kept hearing this phrase of "our park" As if it was run for a specific group of people, mostly parents it seemed to me. Well this my neighbourhood park too. We've been using it for about 7 years now. It's designated a multi use park, hence the playground and baseball diamond and tennis courts. People made point about the kids who played soccer and the Phillipino's who set up volleyball nets .. Well, I'm a person (mostly) and I choose to use this park to exercise my dogs. As is, I'm restricted in how I do that, by leashing them up. I don't agree with this restriction; the offleash law as it stands does not guarantee any one's safety and clearly doesn't guarantee a cleaner park. I've seen dog owners not pick up after their leashed dogs. I've also seen dogs on leash attack other dogs (including mine) and bother non dog owners. But the tickets do bring in revenue, don't they Mr Moscoe.

Public spaces are all about sharing, all about compromise. What kind of world do you live in where you get to custom design a public space to suit your own personal needs? And what kind of world do we want where dogs are not allowed to play? Not one I care to inhabit and just so you know, I don't have enough flyer points to go to Mars just yet

So yup, that's your dog poo too. Don't worry, I'll pick it up for you. That's the kind of nice guy I am