somerville dog: a weblog

Today the movie, Benji: Off the Leash opens around the country, but last night the City of Somerville watched The Wizard of Oz. I can't help but think that, had Dorothy (Judy Garland) had her Cairn Terrier, Toto (Terry, handled by her trainer and manager, Carl Spitz), on a leash, the whole situation would have been averted.¹

If Dorothy had had Toto on a Leash, he² would not have gotten into Miss Gulch's (Margaret Hamilton) garden or chased her cat; Miss Gulch would not have been able to hit him with a rake, and most importantly, he would not have been able to bite Miss Gulch. Call me a wicked witch, but I agree with Miss Gulch: Off-leash, "that dog's a menace to the community". Sure, Auntie Em (Clara Blandick) says, "He's really gentle -- with gentle people, that is," but the fact is that communities have laws to protect people whether they're gentle or not.

As for Auntie Em, she may be "a Christian woman", but she's not an especially responsible guardian to Dorothy--and not because she sends Toto away with Miss Gulch to be destroyed. Contrary to Dorothy's plea--"He didn't know he was doing anything wrong. I'm the one that ought to be punished!"--Dorothy cannot be held responsible for Toto's transgressions any more than Toto can. Dorothy is a child, and, even for a child, no paragon of responsibility: Dorothy runs away from home. "While children can help with some age-appropriate responsibilities, pets require adult caretakers," advises the Partnership for Animal Welfare in Greenbelt, Maryland. The AKC also recommends that an adult take primary responsibility for a pet dog: "Involve your child in the dog?s day-to-day care, but be realistic about how much responsibility he or she can handle." In The Wizard of Oz, it is Auntie Em and Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin), who are irresponsible.

For dogs the human world is probably a lot like Oz: "some of it [isn't] very nice... but most of it [is] beautiful". Whether your dog is in Oz, in Kansas, or in Somerville, he or she should be on-leash except when supervised in a place where there isn't any trouble. Like Dorothy, Somerville needs "some place where there isn't any trouble": Somerville needs safe and legal off-leash areas, where dogs are protected, both from suffering and from inflicting harm.

¹I'm not the only one who thinks so. See "Are You a Good Owner Or a Bad Owner? A Pop Quiz From the Wiz" by Anne Leighton.

²Toto, like the new Benji, is played by a female.

Posted by Michèle at 10:05 PM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship, Literature
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At the planning meeting for an off-leash initiative this evening I met a couple who will be moving to Somerville with their two dogs in September and who shared with the group their experiences at well-organized and highly functional dog parks in Minneapolis.

Check out the timeline of the St. Paul off-leash initiative, spearheaded by Responsible Owners of Mannerly Pets (ROMP)—and check out the ROMP dogs' matching bandanas!

June 1996 A small group of off-leash enthusiasts meet to discuss how to obtain sites where they can legally exercise their dogs off-leash. They choose a name for their effort: ROMP (Responsible Owners of Mannerly Pets).

October 1996 ROMP asks Ramsey County Parks to create two pilot sites, one in Maplewood and one in Shoreview.

January 1997 Ramsey County Parks approves pilot project.

July 1997 Ramsey County Parks opens pilot sites.

If Somerville dog owners can match the pace of ROMP, we could have an off-leash pilot program in thirteen months! When does the clock start ticking? We still don't have a name for our effort...

Posted by Michèle at 9:27 PM
Categories: D.O.G.s (Dog Owner Groups), Off-Leash Recreational Areas—i.e. "Dog Parks", United States
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training each other in acts of communication we barely understand

The book that was most influential in our family's decision to adopt a dog was, without qualification, Donna Haraway's The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Haraway's representation of the human-canine relationship helped me convince my husband--who has pet allergies, who never had a pet as a child, and (the most significant obstacle to his being persuaded) who frequently complained that the problem with people who have dogs is that their only topic of conversation is their dogs--that owning a dog would enrich our lives. One of Haraway's explicit goals in the book is to offer "even the dog phobic--or just those with their minds on higher things-- . . . arguments and stories that matter to the worlds we might yet live in" (3). Strummer was in a small way made possible by Haraway's work.

I heard Haraway speak about companion species twice in 2002. Her emphasis on the problems that arise for both dogs and for people when people treat dogs as furry children or as animated stuffed animals rather than as adult members of an other species impressed me for its common sense. The Companion Species Manifesto, covering in relatively few pages a wide range of topics relating to dogs--from their co-evolution with humans to their current situation coexisting in the world with humans who do not necessarily acknowledge that co-evolution and co-existence--serves as a handy reference to other works of interest to dog-people. Haraway does an excellent job of addressing ambivalence in general, cautioning that "companion species cannot afford evolutionary, personal or historical amnesia" (82). In particular, the later sections, covering the breeds the author lives with and loves, Great Pyrenees (livestock guardian dogs) and Australian Shepherds (herding dogs), as well as dogs needing, with a nod to Virginia Woolf (Wolf, Woof), "a category of one's own" offer a little food for thought on the controversies surrounding both purebred and rescued dogs.

An historian of science, feminist theorist and a poet of a kind, Haraway writes in a style that may be off-putting to the reader who is first-and-foremost interested in doing right by her or his dog, but Haraway's labored language highlights the kind of effort that must be invested in any attempt to understand a being that does not speak your language. "The recognition that one cannot know the other or the self, but must ask in respect for all of time who and what are emerging in relationship is key" (50). Kinda reminds you of Rilke:

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.

Haraway also explains the problems I've been having teaching Strummer to fetch a ball: Strummer may in fact be, like Haraway's mixed-breed dog, Roland, a meta-retriever.

Posted by Michèle at 9:03 PM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship, Dogs and Culture
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A caller to Speak Out in The Somerville Journal last week raised the issue of dog urine damaging grass, and a member has also raised this concern on the Somerville Dogs Bulletin Board.

Urine (of all carnivores) has a high nitrogen content, which temporarily burns grass. That same nitrogen is, in fact, a fertilizer that promotes grass growth. If, immediately afterwards, you pour water over the spot where your dog has urinated, you can dilute the nitrogen content, minimizing the burning potential and maximixing the fertilizing potential of the urine ("'Dog-On-It' Lawn Problems").

Strummer has a "litter box," about four feet by four feet square filled with gravel, so there are no urine burns in the grass in our yard. Our yard is not fenced-in, and my guess is that the reason that we don't have urine burns from our neighbors' dogs in our front yard is either that their owners are responsible and don't allow their dogs to urinate in our grass; or that the dogs don't urinate in the same place all the time, and we've had enough rain this year to dilute what urine has been left in our grass.

Posted by Michèle at 11:42 AM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship, Shooting the S--t
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If you are out tonight observing National Night Out, you will see dog owners out walking our dogs. We will enjoy your company! Dog walking is a deterrent to criminal activity, and dog owners go out to walk our dogs every night.

Somerville is celebrating National Night Out tonight at Foss Park, but, because Foss Park is posted "No Dogs Allowed," dog owners who wish to spend the evening with their canine companions will miss out on tonight's community festivities.

Correction 6 August 2004: Many, many thanks to reader Peter Ungar, who reminds me in a comment here that Foss Park is one of five parks within Somerville that are owned by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Division of Urban Parks and Recreation (formerly the Metropolitan District Commission [MDC]) and is neither under the jurisdiction of the City of Somerville nor posted "No Dogs Allowed." Although I can't seem to find the leash laws for parks under the jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, according to the Chairman of the Foss Park Neighborhood Association, Foss Park, which Strummer and I look forward to visiting soon, is in fact posted "Leash And Pick Up After Dogs: $200 Fine."

I trust that many Somerville dog owners enjoy visiting Foss Park, and I hope that everyone else in Somerville had a great time celebrating National Night Out this year. I'm sorry that Strummer and I missed it! We'll be there next year!

Posted by Michèle at 12:44 PM
Categories: Events, Somerville
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Alderman-at-large William White's resolution,

that the Administration take measures to publicize the City's dog leash law (Ordinance 3-34)

I would like to take the opportunity to assist the administration in acting on this resolution:

Sec. 3-34. Dogs at-large.
It shall be unlawful for the owner or custodian of any dog to permit any such animal to run loose or be at-large within the corporate limits of the city. All dogs found any place other than on the premises of the owner or custodian shall be deemed to be running loose or to be at-large within the meaning of this section, except such dogs that may be under control by means of a chain or leash, not longer than six feet or those that may be in any vehicle or boat, while so therein, which shall be deemed to be under personal control of owner or custodian thereof.

In the course of establishing dog parks, the City will have to amend the language of this ordinance to except areas designated as and in accordance with the rules governing designated off-leash areas.

Update 6 August 2004: In the Regular Meeting on February 12, 2004, the Board of Aldermen adopted the order included in the January 27 report of the Standing Committee on Legislative Matters (comprising aldermen Thomas F. Taylor, Chairperson; John Connolly; Bruce Desmond; Denise Provost, and William A. White, Jr.),

that OHCD [now the Office for Strategic Planning and Community Development] recommend to the Board strategies for reducing damage to turf by dogs, the feasibility of establishing dog runs in the city, and the advisability of modifying the city?s leash law at these locations.

Somerville dog owners embrace the continuing effors of our aldermen to address our need for off-leash areas.

Posted by Michèle at 12:03 AM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship, Somerville
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Speak Out is now included in the online edition of the Journal. Ask, and ye shall receive.

Check out this week's yeas!

Also this week, in a letter to the editor, a reader made the excellent point that dog parks will help the City to enforce existing laws, because Somerville can require that all dogs must wear tags verifying that they are properly licensed and vaccinated against rabies in order to be allowed in the parks.

Posted by Michèle at 11:09 PM
Categories: Somerville
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