06/17/2024
Hello everyone!
Now that offleash season is back on, a couple of important reminders :
1 : We may have the summit for off leash leisure, but that can always change, and considering all the hard work a lot of our members and our city councilors have put in to keep the park open to us, we should constantly see Summit as a privilege and not something that is granted freely.
That being said, please be respectful of the laws and of the other dog owners. Already this morning I saw a few extremely passive-aggressive and defensive interactions between a few owners past 10 trying to inform other owners that the dogs should be on-leash.
We are better than that.
The on leash time is from 10 to 5, not 10:27 to 4:36 or whatever time you think you deserve to have your dog off leash. Again, our access to the park is not eternally guaranteed and we should be constantly reminding ourselves that we only get to keep it if we do our side of the work.
2 : Pick up the p**p.
This is crazy to me, our first day off leash and I found 3 p**ps on the main trail already.
Part of the by-law states that you should always be aware of your dog/it should be within your eyesight. Dog walking while looking at your phone or chatting with your friends while the dogs do their thing is not dog walking.
Again, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it's our job to keep the place clean and show the city and our detractors that we are doing the work we said we would do in order to keep the park open to everyone.
This means keeping each other accountable.
It's not the city's job to provide p**p bags, it's our job to bring p**p bags. And if we don't have any, we can ask any stranger up at summit they'll be happy to give us one. (That's also a great way to meet most of the other members of this group, don't be a stranger!).
3 : This is on a more personal level but I'm sure other people would agree : Don't feed other people's dogs, as cute and as adorable as they may be (obviously unless you get consent).
There are a lot of people (such as myself) who are trying to avoid having dogs group up around someone begging for food. Some of us are training our dogs to listen to us exclusively and those dogs are very food motivated, and a lot of training gets undone when they can just ignore their owners and get rewards elsewhere.
Dogs crowding is also just bad news waiting to happen, some dogs have allergies, other dogs have resource guarding, the list goes on.
Again, out of respect to your fellow owners, if you have treats, feed only the dogs you have consent feeding, and do it discreetly.
4 (Added by Isabelle Feeley) :
If *you* (everyone) let your dog off leash, you need to have control over your dog. If your dog runs up to other dogs and strangers and jumps on them it is not cute! This is the main point that is being raised against off leash dogs: safety concerns, so please everyone make sure people can see you have control over your dogs ESPECIALLY outside of off leash hours (keeping them on leash).
Many people argue that they don’t feel safe coming to the summit even during on leash hours because dog owners don’t respect the leashing times, and these are the strongest arguments against off leash freedom at the summit!
Thank you!
