Prospect Park & Plum Beach

I don't understand why PEP officers seem to have a difficult time ticketing dog owners. Whenever I go into Prospect Park I come across lots of unleashed dogs. It doesn't matter what time of day of day of week. Yesterday I walked from the Picnic House to Prospect Lake and back, beginning an hour past off-leash hours. I encountered 8 unleashed dogs.

As soon as I entered the park at the Picnic House there was a woman cross-country skiing along the Long Meadow with her unleashed dog running across the meadow. Entering the Ravine, I came across a second unleashed dog, who charged at me while growling. I yelled at the owner that it was well past 9am and that there were signs at the entrances to the Ravine that dogs must be leashed there at all time.



Exiting the Ravine I spotted a third unleashed dog running along Center Drive near the Quaker Cemetery. After crossing the Nethermead and walking towards the Terrace Bridge, two unleashed dogs darted down the road towards me. The owner yelled, "They're friendly." I shouted back that I wasn't and that it was past off-leash hours and that Wellhouse Drive and the Terrace Bridge weren't off-leash areas. Needless to say, she didn't leash her two dogs.



Looping back through the Ravine and towards the Nethermead Meadow, I ran across yet more unleashed dogs. There were three running around on the Nethermead.



If the parks department made even a meager effort to control illegally unleashed dogs in Prospect Park, it could have a positive effect. All the evidence, however, seems to make it clear that Commission Benepe truly wants to have dog owners turn our parks into dangerous, uncontrollable dog runs.

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Plum Beach this morning around 10 A.M., a total of seven dogs, five of them unleashed, among three sets of owners.