The Silent Majority Needs To Speak Up

First, set aside the inconvenient facts that owning a dog in a cramped city apartment is inherently cruel and that installing dog runs (i.e., red-light districts for dog defecation) constitutes a ludicrously generous surrender of precious public space. The big problem is that a vocal minority of dog owners are pushing public debate in favor of pets over humans, and we must give huge credit to the state parks department (and not the permissive city parks department, which was infiltrated by dog apologists when the agency’s animal policies were gutted) for putting an end to dog dominance; they are absolutely doing the right thing, and they absolutely deserve our support:

A grassy knoll is the latest territory causing friction between the state Parks Department and Long Island City dog owners after the agency barred canines from the area in Gantry Plaza State Park. Dogs were also banned from the old piers when the rest of the new, six-acre grass area opened up in July.

Rachel Gordon, a state Parks regional director, said the manager of Gantry Plaza saw the grass at the “knoll,” a small strip of grass with a picnic table next to an athletic field, had been turned brown by the effects of dogs relieving themselves there. The ban went into effect last week.

Dog owners can still walk their dogs on the cement areas or in the community garden.

But dog owners in the Queens West towers have not taken the situation lying down. After they said parks [employees] shooed them off the wooden piers in July, they formed DOG LIC to push for more pooch-friendly facilities in the rapidly evolving neighborhood.

. . .

There are three dog runs in the Hunters Point area of Long Island City: one near the now-defunct Tennisport on the site of what will become the Hunters Point South Development; one on Vernon Boulevard between 48th and 49th avenues; and one on 31st Street [actually, 21st Street].

The bottom line is that dog owners will let their animals shit on the grass you sit on, even if there is a dog run directly across the street — because dog owners don’t use the grass except to tear it up around a turd. Additionally, they think nothing of destroying trees, completely ignoring what “curbing your dog” actually means*. Instead of agitating for more permissive policies, they should really be teaching their fellow owners how to be less inconsiderate. As for the rest of us, we shouldn’t give up and we shouldn’t give in — these people’s animals are disgusting and we don’t deserve to have them in our faces . . .

*And even that is a generous allowance — walk through any dog-friendly neighborhood on a hot summer day and the tell-tale scent of dog urine wafts through the streets . . . the smell is horrible, like a pungent chicken broth, and it makes our streets way more pedestrian unfriendly than most other quality-of-life obstacles that the city spends time worrying about.

Location Scout: Gantry Plaza State Park.