PDXDogBlog FAQ

What is this blog advocating?
We feel that most Portlanders should be able to walk to a neighborhood park and exercise with their dog during all daylight hours, with a few limits. There are some legitimate complaints about dogs in our parks. Baseball and softball teams don't appreciate playing on a field littered with dog poop, for example, and we don't blame them. There are places and times in parks where it is inappropriate to have an off-leash dog, such as summertime sports fields, children's play areas, nature preserves, and anywhere there are lots of people. Unfortunately, a small number of dog owners don't understand what is appropriate. At the same time, many parks are often vacant of people, especially on weekdays and in the winter.

What is the solution?
A reasonable set of rules is needed to allow those who want to exercise in their neighborhood parks to do so and those who don't want to interact with dogs to avoid them as well. It is fair to require dog owners to keep their off-leash dogs in a certain section of each park. Most parks in Portland are more than several acres large, so there should be room for all.

In addition, we should re-allocate some of the $500,000 the City has earmarked for chasing down off-leash dogs to activities that educate dog-owners about proper park etiquette and designated areas for off-leash activity, and enforcement of laws on dangerous animals and poop scooping.

What about the poop?
The problem with some owners not cleaning up after their pets has been around for a long time, but only half-heartedly addressed by the Parks Bureau. A minority of Portland parks actually has a clean-up bag dispenser, and often, there is no trash can in the park or it is inconveniently located. When the parks were going through a severe budget crunch a few years ago, some trashcans had signs near them urging people to minimize their trashcan use to save money. It would be a good idea for the Parks Department to put up similar signs for dog owners explaining the importance of cleaning up after one's dog, and the risks associated with not doing so. It is possible to ask the community of dog owners to be responsible. The current City method of hiring 20 employees to do nothing but enforce poop and leash laws is as expensive as it is ineffective: for the 12 months that ended in June 2004, only 3 citations were issued for violating the scoop law!

What about dangerous dogs?
There certainly are dangerous dogs around. But according to Multnomah Animal Services, they're not generally in our parks. Despite the fact that several thousand dogs go to the parks each day, more than 97% of bite investigations conducted by Animal Services are for incidents outside of parks. Yet by focusing Animal Services employees' attentions at our parks, we're actually distracting them from the (more prevalent) dangers outside of the parks. And it costs a lot of city and county taxpayer money to boot.

What about fenced-in dog parks?
These parks are a good thing for many dogs, but not for all. Some dogs need a fenced in area in which to socialize with other dogs (and some owners need the socialization too!) But we can't possibly build a fenced-in area in enough parks such that most people could walk to them; they are also expensive to build and maintain. And once built, the areas are removed as places to fly a kite, play frisbee, or have a picnic. It is entirely possible for a dog-owner to play catch with his dog in the same field that a mom plays frisbee with her daughter.

Why should dogs be off-leash in parks, anyway?
For one thing, there are many thousands of dogs in Portland; they are in more than 40% of Portland households. Dogs and other pets provide well-documented mental and physical health benefits. For some people, especially the elderly, a dog might be their only constant companion. For others, dogs provide safety and security for their owners in parks and out. But people and dogs both need exercise, and that generally means vigerous exercise, which is difficult to achieve by simply walking around the neighborhood several times a day. And as yards get smaller, or disappear completely, dog-owners need open space for exercise.

Parks, and people who use them, also benefit from having from off-leash activity in parks. Crime, from assaults to vandalism, is greatly reduced when many people are using parks throughout the day. A well-used park is a safer park.