Frolicking Pioneer Park dogs cause damage to property | Letter

Published 7:00 am Friday, April 8, 2016

I would like to give you another perspective to Barry Brigg’s opinion piece titled “Proposed change to Pioneer Park leash law is cruel.” I happen to be one of those people who would welcome a strictly enforced leash law. As a data point, my yard is adjacent to Pioneer Park and we also love dogs, having two of our own.

You wrote: “The Open Space Conservancy Trust recently suggested that the city change part of the park from an off-leash to an on-leash park area. The proposal is unnatural and cruel to the hundreds of dog owners and their pets that walk the park’s trails every day …”

Yes, this is true that hundreds of dog owners walk the trails every day and most owners either have their dogs on a leash or under voice control. However, a tiny minority of the owners feel entitled and above the law. This tiny minority and their frolicking dogs have no respect for private property and clearly do not understand what “voice control” means. Each and every day, year round, I have no less than a dozen dogs frolicking their way through my yard at break-neck speed, ripping up the landscape, breaking bushes and flowers when they are not soiling my property or causing injury to my pets. In the summer, the frolicking dogs have no regard for my property or that I may be entertaining on my patio and will come right up to our dinner table and take food. I have spent over $1,000 in vet bills, not to mention lost time from work, to care for my pet, whose injuries were inflicted by the frolics of other dogs. My pet twice sustained injuries to a spinal disc.

I have not experienced any damage from wildlife to the degree that I have experienced from our frolicking Pioneer Park dogs. The deer will eat my geraniums and it’s amusing to watch, but these errant dogs have split bushes in half. I lost two 25-year-old azaleas last summer that split right down the center after being bombasted by frolicking dogs. When you ask the owners of the frolicking dogs to please put Rover on a leash, nine times out of 10 you will be cursed at — if acknowledged at all. In eight years, I have had one apology when a dog came frolicking through my yard. I have had people tell me that I need to put up a fence to keep their dogs out of my yard.

Off-leash dogs are governed by MICC7.04.020, which states “under voice and/or signal control means the immediate recall of an animal to the person in control of the animal when signaled or called. To be under effective voice and/or signal control, the animal must be within the sight of the person in control.”

Nothing says summer at my house like listening to a dog owner shrieking their dog’s name at 6 a.m., not once, not twice but 20 or 30 times while we watch said dog tearing around the yards. I have also witnessed frolicking dogs make their way to Island Crest where they evidently wanted to spread their “run free” happiness with the automobiles. The screeching tires and blue air indicates to me that the automobiles and drivers did not share their unfettered joy.

You wrote: “Let’s resist the temptation to be swayed by a tiny minority.” I posit that it is a tiny minority of dog owners that has in fact ruined it for everyone. My neighbors and I have been very patient as the city has made every effort to educate dog owners on off-leash laws and park etiquette over the last several years. Anna Ormsby of the Mercer Island Police Department has been absolutely wonderful to work with as we have tried, to no avail, to let people govern themselves and do what is right.

I doubt that you would personally put up with dogs running through your yard daily or be welcoming to Rover coming up to your dinner table and taking food or worst case injuring your beloved pet or even you. This is what we, whose yards are adjacent to Pioneer Park, endure every day — rain or shine. People have been injured in their own backyards by frolicking dogs. I don’t feel that I, nor my neighbors should bear the burden of spending thousands and thousands of dollars to put up fences around our properties to keep out the dogs of people who feel entitled and above the current code.

I don’t understand that we have a beautiful off-leash park at Luther Burbank and we frequently take our dogs there so they can frolic about. Yes, we could walk about 30 feet and let them loose in the park but the off-leash park is much safer with no bicycles to worry about. As taxpayers, we also financed the $981,000 renovation of shoreline area at Luther Burbank Park that includes the off-leash park and in kind, people who want a “run free” activity for their companions should utilize that area, and not my yard.

Kristine Ganes

Mercer Island