Busted
Strummer and I were in Nunziato Field late this morning. I was trying to coax the six-year-old standard poodle I'm in the process of adopting to chase a tennis ball. She wasn't interested. All she wants (for the moment anyway) is love. As I was petting her, I noticed a gentleman with a clipboard walking down Putnam on the sidewalk outside the field toward the gate that I had meticulously latched shut. "Uh oh," I said to Strummer, "are we going to get a ticket?" The man with the clipboard entered the field. He left the gate wide open, so I attached Strummer's leash (which was easy, since she was in my arms). He walked about one third of the way toward me, made a call on his cell phone, and then called to me: "No dogs in the park, Miss."
I asked him if he was the Dog Officer. I've spoken with David Renna, Head of Animal Control, on the phone (a very nice man who owns two German Shepherd dogs and is fostering a third) and I thought I might be getting the (albeit inauspicious) opportunity to meet him. But the man said that he works for the city and that he is the one who hung the [very visible] "No Dogs" signs by the gates to the field. I introduced myself: I was breaking the law, but I'm not an unsociable person. He told me his name, which I didn't catch (okay, my social skills are not going to win me any bids for public office), and that he works for the Office of Housing and Community Development. We left the park together and went our separate ways.
And that was it: the end of my visit to my local park. Before I adopted Strummer (less than a week ago), I have never had any reason to visit a Somerville city park. Since I have adopted Strummer, I have visited Nunziato Field three times.
Somerville residents who like to toss a football can enjoy their pastime in Somerville city parks. Somerville residents who play basketball can shoot hoops with their friends in Somerville city parks, and in our parks they can meet other Somervudlians who also enjoy basketball. Somerville residents who have children can take their children to Somerville city parks where their children can play with other children and where they can meet other parents who live in Somerville. But Somerville residents who have dogs have no place in the city where they can play with their dogs and socialize with other Somervudlians with their dogs.
Everyone will agree that a park that has people in it is a better park than a park that is deserted. When there are people in a park, it is a safer park: Generally crimes are not committed when there are people around. Also, when there are people in a park, dog owners are more likely to clean up after their dogs: a dog owner who is all alone, surreptitiously breaking the law by having his dog in the park, may not clean up after his dog for any number of reasons including:
1) He may feel spiteful toward the city for making him break the law in order to exercise his dog off leash.
2) He may subscribe to the albeit flawed tree-falling-in-the-forest principle: if no body saw it, do I have to clean it up?
3) He may be a jerk (okay, if a dog poops in a public place (or in someone else's yard) and his owner doesn't pick it up for whatever reason, he is a jerk).
More often than not, however, even a jerk will pick up after his dog if someone else sees his dog pooping. So if the city allowed dogs in parks, law-abiding dog owners would be that many more people who might see a dog pooping, effectively pressuring the owner to clean up after his dog!
Dog owners, like football players and parents and everyone else who lives in the city, do not like to step in dog poop. We don't like our dogs to step in, roll in or eat dog poop. If we are exercising our dogs and we find dog poop, we will very likely pick up and dispose of the offending poop, even if our dog didn't do it. Dog owners are, I think, the only residents of the city who carry with them plastic bags for picking up dog poop. And these are the people the city does not want in its parks?!
I don't want to break the law. But I do want to be able to exercise my dog regularly off-leash and let her play with other dogs. Dogs that do not get enough exercise and that do not get to play with other dogs develop what humans justifiably consider behavior problems: for example excessive barking and uncontrollable excitement around other dogs. Strummer has lived in rural New Hampshire with six or seven other dogs and had a big fenced in yard in which to play. Since I brought her home, she has not barked once, and she is pretty blasé