somerville dog: a weblog

Callahan State Park is an 820-acre park located in Northwest Framingham. Park uses come from many different cities and towns to exercise and socialize their dogs off-leash there.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) will hold a public meeting to discuss off-leash recreation at Callahan State Park, Tuesday evening, December 5, at 7:00 in the Lower Level Meeting Room in Framingham Town Hall, 150 Concord Street, Framingham, MA (directions).

Please come to the public meeting and support the efforts of Callahan park users to work with the community and with the DCR for options that serve the needs of all Callahan park users and neighbors.

The DCR is in the process of revising park regulations. Massachusetts dog owner groups are concerned that the DCR will establish a blanket policy requiring that dogs be on leash on DCR properties. We are asking that the DCR include in the regulations a provision for off-leash recreation in designated areas.

Dog owners who enjoy off-leash recreation (or would like to be able to do so legally) at DCR parks—e.g. Sheep Fold in the Middlesex Fells Reservation—must act now to ensure that the DCR includes provisions for off-leash recreation in the new park regulations. This concerns us intimately in Somerville: 60% of public open space in our City is maintained by the DCR (Alewife Brook Reservation [Dilboy Field], Draw Seven Park, Foss Park, Mystic River Parkland, and Shore Drive Parkland).

Posted by Michèle at 6:48 PM
Categories: Massachusetts
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RoDogRun is sponsoring their first fundraiser to build a fenced dog run in Ronan Park, located on historic Meetinghouse Hill in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.

Make a toast to the dogs, Saturday, December 2, 2006, 5-8pm at the Blarney Stone, 1505 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester (2 blocks from the Fields Corner T Station).

$20 cover includes appetizers and a donation to help build a fenced dog run in Ronan Park.

There will be raffle prizes and dog-friendly gift bags.

RSVP by November 28.
The Blarney Stone welcomes all humans. Please make other arrangements for your canine companions.

Posted by Michèle at 5:50 PM
Categories: D.O.G.s (Dog Owner Groups), Massachusetts
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via e-mail

In the years that dogs have been allowed to run free in [New York] city parks, dog bites have decreased 90 percent

according to an op-ed piece in the New York Times today by Jonathan Safran Foer, "My Life as a Dog."

Whether or not the source is reliable is a good question: Foer intimates that his own dog, George, who "occasionally tries to eat [his] son" is one of the culprits keeping the decrease in dog bites in New York City from achieving one hundred percent.

Foer may not be a responsible dog owner, but he does have something worthwhile to say about the place of pet ownership in human communities. Pet ownership, Foer understands, is an inter-species relationship. From his relationship with his dog he has learned that "compromise is necessary to share space with other beings"— a lesson that applies not only in the myriad relationships individuals may have with one another, but also in relationships among groups and organizations of all kinds.

It's well and fine that Foer advocates "sharing our space with other living things," but the the off-leash hours policy in NYC parks is not about humans sharing public open space with dogs: It's about neighbors sharing space with each other; it's about park users sharing space with each other. People who enjoy off-leash recreation live in communities with people who do not like dogs. Public open space must accommodate park users who enjoy off-leash recreation as well as park users who enjoy basketball, frisbee, reading and soccer.

Yes, off-leash recreation is good for dogs. Off-leash recreation provides much needed opportunities for socialization and exercise, and dogs that are well socialized and that get enough exercise are better pets and better neighbors. They are less likely to develop inappropriate and destructive habits like barking, chewing, digging, lunging and jumping-up on people.

Off-leash recreation is good for humans, too. It provides an incentive for people to get out in the fresh air and to meet other people in the community who share similar interests.

Here in Somerville, MA, opportunities for off-leash recreation are provided in designated off-leash recreational areas according to posted rules. We have one OLRA, which opened almost eight months ago—the fully fenced-in OLRA at Nunziato Field. For the time being, one quarter-acre of open space must serve the 27,000+ people who live with dogs in Somerville. In New York City, overuse of the City's 40+ dog parks is mitigated by the Offleash Courtesy Hour policy: In public parks without designated areas for off-leash recreation dogs are allowed off-leash from 9 pm to 9 am.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Board of Health votes on December 5, 2006 whether to adopt amendments that will clarify the authority of the Parks Commissioner under the Health Code to allow dogs off the leash in City parks.

Posted by Michèle at 3:50 PM
Categories: Canine Good Citizenship, Off-Leash Recreational Areas—i.e. "Dog Parks", United States
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Today is Election Day! Somerville residents are voting in federal, statewide and county elections today.

The City of Somerville Election Department allows voters to bring our dogs with us to the polls: dogs must be on leash, remain close to their companions at all times and must not bother other people.

Polls are open 7am to 8pm.

Posted by Michèle at 7:00 AM
Categories: Voter Information
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See Prison Pups, a documentary about the Concord Farm prison's training program for service dogs, tomorrow, Saturday, November 4, at the Museum of Fine Arts!

via e-mail

Filmmaker Alice Bouvrie's documentary, PRISON PUPS won the Best Documentary Award at the Berks County Film Festival in Reading, PA! (See below) Here are the upcoming screenings for PRISON PUPS. We hope you can come to one of them!

Produced in association with the Filmmaker-In-Residence Lab at WGBH, Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Saturday Nov 4, 2006 at 2:40pm
Remis Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston
(617) 369-3306 Tickets will go on sale mid-October

Studio Cinema, Belmont, MA
Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 at 7:30pm
376 Trapelo Road, Belmont, MA (617-484-1706)

Berks County Film Festival, Reading, Pennsylvania
Saturday Nov. 11 at 12:00pm
Prison Pups is the "Best Documentary" winner!
The Abraham Lincoln (A Wyndham Historic Hotel) The Washington Room
(www.berkscountyfilmfestival.com)

Asheville Film Festival, Asheville, N.C
Saturday, Nov. 11 at 11:00AM
Asheville Community Theater, 35 E. Walnut Street, Asheville (828-254-1320)

Please check out the website for photos and more information:
www.mineralkingproductions.com

Les Masterson has an article about the film in the Arlington Advocate this week: "Training program assists dogs, inmates."

Posted by Michèle at 9:06 AM
Categories: Dogs and Culture, Events, Massachusetts
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