Dog Attacks Dog (and Pet Sitter) In Brooklyn Park

"Dog owners barking mad at pooch attacks in Brooklyn and upper Manhattan city parks
Inwoof dog group blasts cops for not arresting owners of vicious dogs". That's the headline in today's Daily News. The park was in Bushwick, not Prospect, but the problem is hardly surprising: an unleashed dog attacked a leashed dog, and the cops refused to do anything about it, even after showing up to watch the attack. Read it the whole thing here here, but particularly get this:

Usually, after a bite, cops notify the Department of Health’s Animal Bite Unit who then probes whether the owner has proper vaccination documents for their pet.

Failing to have the correct paperwork can lead to fines of up to $1,000, said a DOH spokesperson, adding that there are no records of the two biting incidents.

So the loose dog policy caused dog bites to be at historic lows, right? (Actually, as we reported the other day, they are up, but never mind.) We know why now: they're not being reported.

Hat-tip to Christina.

Man Sics Pit Bull on Cops; Dog Shot

This Daily News articlereports:

Police shot and killed a pit bull after its owner unleashed the dog to attack cops in a Brooklyn housing project, police said.

And get this:

In 2010, there were 30 incidents - 29 of them involving dogs - where officers fired during an animal attack, according to the NYPD Annual Firearms Discharge Report.

Out of the 32 dogs in those incidents, 19 of them were killed and seven were injured, while 12 officers were hurt, according to the report.

Much Adoo About Dogs in West Harlem

This is sort of outside our area, but it proves a point we've made from time to time. The Times reports an increasing problem with dog waste in West Harlem.

While stepping in what a dog has left behind has long been an inherent peril of life in New York City, it is far less likely to happen than it was decades ago before the so-called pooper-scooper law was introduced. But like many changes in Harlem, which has been undergoing a radical transformation in recent years, the instances of unlucky steps have assumed larger significance.

Longtime residents, looking for a theory, point out that affluent newcomers are bringing more dogs into the neighborhood. And they are suggesting, sometimes subtly and sometimes not, that the recently arrived dog owners are not as vigilant about cleaning up after their pets as they should be.

“I guess it’s the new thing,” said Eutha Prince, the community board’s district manager. “More and more you see expensive dogs walking around where you used to see mutts.”

Ms. Morgan-Thomas said the problem began gathering steam in the last four years, when more people began arriving in the neighborhood, bringing increased gentrification.

“I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they’ve come to a new community in Harlem,” she said, “and because people throw paper on the ground or whatever, and people are not so protective and invested in the community, new citizens feel like, ‘Oh well, so what, let my dog poop.’ ”

. . .

Any discussion of newcomers to Harlem has, by its very nature, a racial underpinning, given that most longtime residents are black and many newcomers are white. But dog owners said that race played no role when it came to untended waste.

“I don’t think it’s a racial issue,” said David Hazen, a dog owner and avowed poop-picker-upper who moved to the neighborhood two years ago. “It’s a laziness issue.”

It may not be a racial issue but it's a racial fact. Not all dog owners are white, and not all white dog owners leave dog poop on the ground, just as not all white dog owners let their dogs off-leash, legally or otherwise. But dogs generally come with white people. It is just that sort of gentrification that motivated the off-leash rules, and the same thing is now happening in Harlem. And the white folks with dogs who are moving there are probably the same type of people who live in Park Slope, or who used to live there until they were priced out of the neighborhood, and who let their dogs loose in the park. To them, it is "me first", and everyone else be damned.

Hat tip to Christina.

Dogs on the Nethermead

We last reported to you that Prospect Park's administration had acknowledged that 311 had incorrect information about when dog hours began and was going to fix this. We subsequently called 311 to check, and indeed 311 now says that dog hours begin in Prospect at 9 P.M. But of course it has made no difference in practice; the information 311 did or did not have was not the reason dogs were, and are, permitted to run loose in Prospect Park at all hours. Prospect Park's administration did not intend to enforce the leash rules during the Tupper Thomas era and nothing has changed, as this correspondence shows:

Alerting the Prospect Park Alliance and Department of Parks & Recreation about all the illegally unleashed dogs on Prospect Park's Nethermead Meadow has had absolutely no effect. Today at 4:24pm, as I walked through the park, I counted 9 unleashed dogs running around the meadow with several more heading there through the Ravine. A few minutes later I walked passed the baseball fields where I counted 5 dogs on the fields. All but one were unleashed, which is irrelevant considering that dogs, leashed or unleashed, aren't permitted on the fields. At the south end of the Long Meadow there were 7 unleashed dogs

I noticed one dog rifling through a bag in someone's stroller that was on the Long Meadow. The owner yelled for the dog, but it ignored her as it obviously had found something tasty in the stranger's bag. The mother of the toddler to whom the stroller belonged was too far away to do anything, although it didn't seem clear that she even knew some dog had its face in her child's things.

Here's a video of the Nethermead Meadow at 4:25pm and I'm certain that the number of unleashed dogs would have doubled by 5pm had I stuck around to watch.

Today's Scofflaw; Comments on Yesterday's Article

Central Park at about 4 P.M. today, just north of the Children's Zoo

* * *

Yesterday we posted a link to an article, by a clueless New York Times reporter, on a leash controversy at a Connecticut nature preserve and how in New York City's parks the issue has been resolved. Here are two of the more thoughtful comments:

I'm sure many dog owners consider themselves nature lovers, but I *know* that many have no regard for preserving Central Park's lawns and wildlife. It's routine to see dogs off the leash in the Ramble--supposedly a leash-required zone--where certain birds will soon be nesting on the ground. Same thing in other wooded areas. And of course, there is no enforcement; they do what they like with impunity.

Once-green lawns in the park are now covered with wood chips,
where dog owners have congregated with their dogs. Look around the Great Lawns: all the wood chips you see cover areas that used to be grassy.

The sane solution is to create good-sized dog runs perhaps along the edges of the park, and require that dogs be leashed everywhere else. Some owners don't like runs, but the dogs won't care. And maybe that will discourage the insane fashion of raising dogs like Saint Bernards, Bernese, and Great Danes in the city, who can never get enough exercise.

There should be "Nature Weekends" in Central park.

* * *

Dogs are animals and should be leashed whenever they are out in public areas. Period. They are not people. (This goes double for public areas in urban environments.)

Furthermore, pets are luxury items, not necessities, and I have no sympathy for people who want to force their personal lifestyle choice on the rest of us.
As an example, Riverside Park up around 116th Street is practically out-of-bounds to those of us who want to exercise there in the morning. I have been hassled by dogs there enough times that, even though I recognize that most of the dogs don't cause trouble, I have to be on my guard every time I'm trying to run and I come across a dog. Sorry dog owners, but if keeping a dog on a leash is too much trouble for you, then maybe you should get rid of the dog or move out of the city.

You can throw all of the statistics you want at me about how dog bites have gone down (yadda, yadda, yadda, note that correlation does no equal causation and I remain unconvinced that letting animals tear around in a park is somehow safer that not allowing that) but all of that is irrelevant because dog bites would be zero per year if we just banned dogs from the city period. Any public space where you are allowed to bring your dog is a gift from the society around you. It is not your right. It is a privilege.

We also just sent the following email to the reporter (the Times isn't accepting more comments):

Dear Ms. Foderaro:

I was disappointed by your discussion of the leashless dog issue in New York City and particularly your uncritical quotation of Adrian Benepe, who is hardly a neutral observer, and Bob Marino, a paid lobbyist for the anti-leash dog owners (by no means all dog owners). You apparently made no effort to contact opponents of New York's unleashed policies even though you could have found any of Messrs Jett or Croft, or me, with a minimal Google search. Partly as a result, you misstate--and slant--some significant facts:

1. Before the leash law--actually, a Board of Health regulation--was amended in 2007, regular leash-free hours in the park was not "accepted practice". In Prospect Park, the DPR had for years informally declared "courtesy hours" in which the leash law would not be enforced--over the protests of birders and many others, but in Central Park, the CPC actually warned dog owners that while there were informal off-leash gatherings, participants were subjected to being ticketed. And a Queens group had sued the DPR over its non-enforcement of the rules.

2. Crime in big New York City parks has been dropping for years. Central Park is now considered safe 24 hours a day. Dogs may be unleashed only between 9 P.M. and 9 A.M., and the vast majority of legal off-leash activity occurs between 8 A.M. and 9 A.M. Mr.. Benepe and the anti-leash lobby whose slogans he is parroting--there is no other way to put it--cannot explain how this presence accounts for the drop in crime between 9 A.M. and 9 P.M. And if you were to come to Central Park or Prospect Park on a really nasty, sleety day, you would see birdwatchers, but few if any dog owners with their dogs loose.

3. It is true that dog bites in the City were dropping for many years. But that was before the leash law was changed. And--just to reiterate--in Central Park, before that time there were small gatherings of unleashed dogs in the morning. Now, all of Central Park is a dog park before 9 A.M. Since 2007, according to a recent Daily News article, dog bites in the City have been going UP. So, by Mr. Benepe's logic, the promulgation of the loosened leash law has increased dog bites.

4. I refer you to a recent Wall Street Journal article on conflicts between unleashed dogs and other New York City park users such as bicyclists, runners, and horseback riders.. You also might want to track down Cal Voenberger, author of Birds of Central Park, who (according to a friend of mine who knows him) has stopped going to Central Park entirely because of all of the unleashed dogs. In short, the relatively small set of dog owners who insist on letting their dogs off-leash outside fenced dog runs has made life unpleasant, to say the least, for everyone else who uses the parks during the morning hours.

The Times Declaims on Off-Leash

An uneducated article written by Lisa Foderaro about a Connecticut preserve:

In New York City, years of restive debate were mostly quieted in 2007, when the Parks and Recreation Department announced that dogs would be allowed off leash in many large parks 9 p.m. to 9 a.m., making official what had been an accepted practice. Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, said that dog owners made parks safer by their presence “day in and day out, despite the weather.”

* * *

In New York City, Mr. Benepe subscribes to the theory that dogs are less aggressive when they are allowed to socialize and exercise. Indeed, the number of dog bites reported in the city has plummeted in recent years, as the parks department has built dozens of dog runs and allowed dogs off leash. Still, he said, “the right to have your dog off leash doesn’t confer the right to inconvenience and injure other people.”

Bob Marino, president of the New York Council of Dog Owner Groups, an umbrella organization, praised the city’s decision to formalize the off-leash hours. “Under this administration, the whole idea is ‘Let’s work together and talk,’ ” he said. “Is it perfect? No. But it allows a city with limited land and a lot of people and a lot of dogs to coexist.”

The debate has hardly been "quieted", the practice was previously not "accepted" in Central Park, dog owners aren't around when the weather turns foul, --as we've pointed out--the apparent "safety" is that there are fewer people of color around during off-hours who are afraid of dogs, and--as we pointed out the other day--since dogs have officially been allowed off-leash, dog bites have increased. (The reporter doesn't cite any statistics.)

And she quotes the other side only in reference to the Connecticut preserve. This other side is telling:

But then there are the leash proponents, like Judith Waters, who said that, because of the moratorium, she could now return safely to the preserve.

“I have been jumped on, had my clothes muddied, torn and slobbered on,” Mrs. Waters, a dog owner herself, wrote to Mr. Brant in an e-mail. “I’ve been intimidated, barked and growled at, and I have been scolded for not understanding that dogs have a right to these trails.”

Linda Giers of Norwalk said she had stopped going to the preserve since she once went around a corner to find two German shepherds off leash. “The owner was nowhere to be seen,” she said. “It was intimidating.”

The reporter doesn't mention the destruction of park habitat, the danger to park wildlife, and that people are getting hurt by the City's off-leach policy.

Hat-tips to Christina and Geoffrey.

Do Berkeley dog owners need to be put on a leash?

A San Francisco Chronicle blog chronicles precisely the type of behavior, and attitude, that by now ought to be familiar to Prospect Park visitors.

And read the comments too.