Dogs Get Permanent Free Run of Laurel Canyon Park

Laurel Canyon Park was permanently designated a part-time, leash-free dog park--the city’s first--by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission on Monday, but champions of canine rights still used the occasion to scold the city for ignoring pet owners’ needs.

The commission action ended a two-year experiment in letting dogs run free at the Laurel Canyon facility, located just south of Mulholland Drive in Councilman Michael Woo’s district.

Under the program approved Monday, the hours of leash-free use of the park are unchanged: 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. until park closing daily. At other times, dogs must be leashed.

Before the vote, two leaders of the fight to make Laurel Canyon Park a haven for free-running dogs criticized the city.

Jane Purse, a founder of ParkWatch, a pro-dog group, said Laurel Canyon should be seen as a “model for other parks to follow.” The city, Purse said, still has not funded construction of a fence around Woodley Park so that facility can also be made into a dog park.

Kathy Doyle, another ParkWatch member, charged that the city was far behind other cities in meeting the needs of dog owners. San Francisco, she said, has 28 dog parks.

Commissioner Dominick Rubalcava proposed that Laurel Canyon be totally dedicated as a dog park. Rubalcava said he was bothered by mixing dog and human use of the park, which might pose public health concerns.

“I would not take my children to play in this park,” because of the dog feces there, Rubalcava said.

But a city attorney warned that Rubalcava’s proposal to transform Laurel Canyon into a round-the-clock dog park would be improper because an environmental study of the plan conducted for the city did not address such an option. Woo also challenged it as unfair. “There’d be a lot more people at this meeting” to protest if the proposal were to make Laurel Canyon Park a full-time dog park, he said.

Under prodding from commissioner Bill Robertson, Woo said he would seek council support for building other dog parks throughout the city. He said this might reduce crowding by the large numbers of dog owners who now come to Laurel Canyon.