Early one morning in January, I was walking my dog past a local park. It was a beautiful scene with a light coating of frost covering the trees and the ground. Alone in the middle of the park a man was playing frisbee with his Jack Russell Terrier.
He was breaking the law, of course.
The leash law as it is written in Dallas requires that your dog be leashed anytime it is off of your property and not within a fenced enclosure. The only public property where the dog may be off leash is in one of the dog parks. This is intended, of course, to help prevent stray or obnoxious dogs (and their equally obnoxious owners) from threatening, or at least bothering others. But it also means that playing ball or frisbee with your dog in the park is a thing of the past. Oh, and don’t try jogging around the lake with your well-behaved dog at your side, unleashed. Friends of mine just got a ticket for doing that.
In an article in Dallas’ Only around the first of the year, there was a story about how the law was in place, but there was little or no enforcement. At that time, only 9 citations had been issued. Now I am beginning to hear stories like the one by my friends at White Rock, as well as reports of Code Enforcement officers getting in on the act. The rumor is, this is coming from "higher up". I’m getting like Jeff. Is there any connection between this more aggressive enforcement of the leash law and the dogs on the patio problem? I would love to hear comments/anecdotes from others in the neighborhood on this.
