somerville dog: a weblog

Jonathan Ralton is a responsible dog owner and lives in Brighton. In June 2003 he set up a yahoo group for neighborhood dog owners. Today the Ringer Playground Dog Owners Group includes ninety-two members who have posted over 600 messages.

Ralton and other members of the Ringer Playground Dog Owners Group are active members of the Ringer Playground Crime Watch Group,¹ which, in February of this year, was featured in an article in the Boston Globe, "Dogs add bite to crime watch."

¹Additional information about the activities of the Ringer Park Crime Watch Group is available on the website of Emerald Necklace Budo Martial Arts.

The efforts of Ralton and the Ringer Playground Dog Owners Group, both behind the scenes and on the front line, to make their neighborhood and their neighborhood park a better place are worthy of both praise and support. Instead of praise, however, the community newspaper blames the group for the tension between dog owners and other members of the community who enjoy the 12.38 acre park:

Noreen Kennedy is shocked that dog owners are allowing their pooches to dig holes in the softball field, where she practices with the Allston-Brighton Women's Softball League.

"When these dogs are off leash, they're out of control of these people," said Noreen Kennedy. "Their attitude is if anyone is bothered by it, all they have to do it ask me."

But Kennedy, who owns two shiatsus [sic] herself, said that unfairly puts the responsibility on parents and other park users.

. . .

Kennedy blames the problem on a local dog owner Web site started in 2003.

Kennedy probably owns a pair of Shih Tzus, not a pair of massage therapists, and she has a point: It is the responsibility of everyone who owns a dog to ensure that her or his dog never greets a person without that person's explicit consent. What is so insidious about the Allston-Brighton TAB's reporting, however, is that it implies that Ralton disagrees with her.

On the contrary, it is because of the passion of Ralton and the Ringer Park Dog Owners Group that more and more dog owners in Allston/Brighton understand the responsabilities of dog owners both to their dogs and to their community.

Want better-behaved dogs in your community? Support your local dog owners group!