Category Archives: Dog Ordinance

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Dog Park Hearing – this Wednesday

The City Council’s Youth, Parks and Recreation Standing Committee will meet to discuss the proposed DOG PARK at Green Hill Park this Wednesday, February 26 at 5:30pm in the Esther Howland (South) Chamber at City Hall.

You can find more details about the proposal here.  The proposal to have two enclosed areas –one for smaller dogs and one for larger dogs — was one of the last proposals from DPW&P Commissioner Moylan before he retired.

I’d like to see safe places for dogs to walk and play in the city.  Right now, there is no park in the city where dogs are allowed, even on-leash, even on the Common.  Dogs cannot technically be walked downtown (unless they live in the immediate vicinity).

But if you’ve lived in the city more than a few minutes, you know that many folks bring dogs to parks (sometimes even off-leash); that an area owned by the city has become an unofficial dog park; but that those who are trying to follow the law have limited options about where they can safely (and legally) have their dogs exercise and play.

As we’ve often seen in the city, it’s easy to take the initial step to ban something, and much harder to enforce the ban.  In the case of dogs in parks, there has been little ability to enforce it, and nowhere to direct people to take their dogs within the city.

Other communities (within the Commonwealth and around the country) have successfully implemented dog parks.  We should learn from their experiences and create from them a plan that will work for Worcester.

If you’d like the city to continue (well, begin) a conversation about dog parks, you need to:

We have created a Facebook event for this.  If you are on Facebook, please join the event & invite your friends.

You can also join the Facebook group for Friends of Worcester Dog Park or follow on Twitter for more updates.

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Dog Park Hearing – February 26

The City Council’s Youth, Parks and Recreation Standing Committee will meet to discuss the proposed DOG PARK at Green Hill Park on Wednesday, February 26 at 5:30pm (for real this time; the meeting has been rescheduled) in the Esther Howland (South) Chamber at City Hall.  We will send more details as we get them.

If you want this to happen, you need to:

We have created a Facebook event for this.  If you are on Facebook, please join the event & invite your friends.

You can also join the Facebook group for Friends of Worcester Dog Park for more updates.

You can find more details about the proposal here.

Worcester has come a long way in the past few years.  We no longer have a bully-breed ordinance, and we now have an actual proposal for a dog park.

We need to keep the momentum going on making Worcester a better place for dogs and their owners.

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Dog Park Hearing – Sometime in the near future

The City Council’s Youth, Parks and Recreation Standing Committee will meet to discuss the proposed DOG PARK at Green Hill Park on Monday, February 3 at 5:30pm in the Esther Howland (South) Chamber at City Hallsometime soon — that meeting got cancelled.  We will send more details as we get them.

If you want this to happen, you need to:

We have created a Facebook event for this.  If you are on Facebook, please join the event & invite your friends.

You can also join the Facebook group for Friends of Worcester Dog Park for more updates.

You can find more details about the proposal here.

Worcester has come a long way in the past few years.  We no longer have a bully-breed ordinance, and we now have an actual proposal for a dog park.

We need to keep the momentum going on making Worcester a better place for dogs and their owners.

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Dog Park on Tuesday’s City Council Agenda

On Tuesday’s City Council agenda, there is a proposal for a dog park on a “5 acre site along the westerly boundary of Green Hill Park.”  (Corner of Channing and Green Hill Parkway)

It’s Item 8A on the agenda; you can find more details here or by viewing the PDF of the city manager’s portion of the agenda.

This will be referred to the City Council’s Standing Committe on Youth, Parks, and Recreation and there will be at least one hearing before the Parks Commission.

However, if you feel strongly about this — please come to the City Council meeting on Tuesday and show your support by speaking in the first half hour of the meeting.

If you cannot attend the meeting, please email the City Council to let them know your feelings.

If you are on Facebook, you can share the event with those who might be interested.

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New dog ordinance passed

In what will hopefully be an end to the saga of the pit bull ordinance, last night the City Council passed a dog/cat/ferret ordinance that will bring Worcester in compliance with a new state law.  That means no breed-specific legislation, and targeting problem dog owners rather than dogs that have done nothing wrong .

Councilor Eddy, the original proponent of the pit bull ordinance, decided to walk out of the room rather than vote either on his conscience (which would be a No) or to bring the city ordinances in line with state law (which would be a Yes).

While some might look at that as a cowardly act, I prefer to look at it as an homage to his former colleague Joff Smith.

Congratulations to the dog owners who made this happen!

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Pit Bull Ordinance on Tuesday’s City Council agenda

As regular readers have been anticipating, the city solicitor is recommending that the City Council adopt revisions to the existing dog ordinances. The revisions would remove any breed-specific aspects to the ordinance, allows for license fees to be waived for service dogs and dogs registered to those over 70 years of age, and changes the way hearings for dogs accused of being nuisances are handled.

I am grateful to the dog owners who contacted the city clerk and city solicitor about this.  I hope it passes on Tuesday night.

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Pit Bull Ordinance on its last legs?

You may recall that a few months ago, Governor Patrick signed into law An Act Further Regulating Municipal Animal Control.

Among other things, the “legislation updates the state’s dangerous dog law so that it now nullifies existing city and town ordinances that focus on particular breeds, such ones that ban pit bulls or require them to be muzzled. Breed-discriminatory legislation has never proven effective at reducing dog bites, and it punishes all citizens living with a particular breed, whether they act as responsible owners or not. The new law requires municipalities to focus on the behavior of misbehaving dogs and their owners, regardless of the breed involved—for example, enforcing existing leash laws for all free-roaming dogs, which are the animals responsible for most reported bites.”

The City of Boston has already noted that “the City’s pitbull regulations and rules will become void as of November 1, 2012.”

I am checking to see whether the City of Worcester will go in a similar direction regarding its pit bull ordinance, and whether residents who have had their dogs registered as pit bulls will be notified that they no longer need to do anything different than other dog owners.

More to come in this space soon, I hope.

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So out of touch it’s beyond belief

As Jeremy reports, An Act Further Regulating Animal Control means that Worcester’s ludicrous pit bull ordinance will likely be no more in the very near future.

A couple of Fridays ago, I was at Elm Park with my young son.  We were sitting close to the playground area.  A man came by with his small dog.  He proceeded to let his dog off-leash, and sicced his dog on any squirrel in a thirty-foot radius.

The dog was running loose all over a play area for children, teeth bared, and didn’t come back to his owner on the first, second, or third call.

Later on that same day, we were walking to the Common.  On the sidewalk, a man had a muzzled pit bull on a leash.  The dog had a big grin on his face — despite the muzzle — and seemed well-socialized.

I was extremely concerned about the first dog — all 10 pounds of him — and not at all concerned with the much-larger pit bull.

Because dog behavior is largely about the owners.

So, no, Councilor Eddy, it is not the MSPCA who “has been so out of touch on this it’s beyond belief.”

It’s the vast majority of last term’s City Council, who voted for a deeply flawed ordinance.

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Hot on the heels of the likely demise of the pit bull ordinance is news that the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District has to implement the stricter discharge limits they’ve been fighting the EPA on for years.

This means that ratepayers will likely have to pay a bit more on their water bills, and that frequent listeners to City Council meetings will hear more of the phrase “biased science” than usual.

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Not to sound too superstitious, but don’t these sorts of things always happen in threes?

What could the third sane decision about laws in the city?

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Who can facilitate Worcester dog adoptions?

According to Hank Phillippi Ryan, not Barton Brook Kennels.

This is a topic someone had asked me about and I hadn’t had the time to look into.  [Note that this TelegramTowns article indicated that BBK could not adopt these dogs out.]  I’m really glad Channel 7 did a story on it.

Essentially, though Barton Brook Kennels takes in Worcester strays, it does not have a license to adopt out dogs.

So — who’s facilitating the adoption of Worcester strays?

Worcester Animal Rescue League.

As regular readers (or anyone who knows about dogs in Worcester) may remember, WARL lost/didn’t reapply for the contract as the city’s designated dog kennel because they strongly opposed the completely ridiculous pit bull ordinance.

Yes, this is the same WARL that Councilor Eddy spoke so poorly about at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting (emphasis added):

J.O’Brien would like the city to work with local animal shelters to allow a check box on dog licenses that would let owners make a voluntary contribution to local shelters. Eddy wants to know if this is the Animal Rescue League, who “made a public ultimatum in the paper” saying if the pitbull ban went through they wouldn’t take city pitbulls. O’Brien says it would go to any organization that works with the city’s animal control office, so long as they filed an RFP for them. Eddy wants a list of how many organizations would fit this criteria.

It seems like WARL is stepping up to the plate, as they always do, despite the criticism of an elected official who shoved a pointless and unenforceable ordinance onto the books.

I believe Barton Brook Kennels is still on a month-t0-month contract with the city.  Someone should be asking why we don’t negotiate back to WARL.

Updated, 8:02 – I looked at the city’s contract report, and saw that Barton Brook Kennels has the contract for Animal Shelter Services/WPD until November 2013.

When this contract is up for renewal, we should definitely look back into WARL and get a reckoning of how successful (or not, as I suspect) the pit bull ordinance has been.

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Not that anyone’s surprised…

A year ago, I asked whether an ordinance restricting pit bulls would cause folks to leave more dogs at the WARL.

Well, it’s not just the WARL: other area shelters are finding an increase in pit bull relinquishment.

A couple Saturdays ago (May 14) I was driving downtown and there was a walk-for-something-0r-other going on, and one of the walkers had her pit bull on a leash.  No muzzle. 

The world didn’t end.  Heck, there were police all around and no citation in sight.

Perhaps they didn’t notice the dog.  Perhaps it wasn’t worth making a scene.  Or — perhaps — decently behaved dogs that are controlled by their owners on a leash just aren’t a problem.

In five or ten years, we’ll likely realize that this ordinance was a bad idea and we might even elect a few folks who might have the intestinal fortitude to scrap it.

But it won’t be an I told you so moment.

In the intervening time, there are and will continue to be animals who will suffer for no reason other than their appearance.  This is and will continue to be unfair, and will not get us any closer to having better owners and safer pets.