Dogs at Cemetery a Grave Sight to Some

Western Cemetery overlooks Portland Harbor in the city’s most exclusive neighborhood. But this lovely spot has plainly gone to the dogs.

Poodles and pointers, terriers and retrievers, mastiffs and Great Danes romp over grave sites chasing sticks and balls and one another. Rolls of plastic bags and a list of rules at the entrances remind owners of their responsibilities. On their way out, visitors can drop the bags in a garbage can that sits over the remains of Sally, whose worn marble headstone reveals she died in 1853 but no longer shows her surname.

Dog owners insist the previously neglected graveyard is better off-- they’ve organized cleanup days, raised money for restoration and, they say, driven off unsavory elements with their activities.

But they fear they may be pushed out by people who believe the 170-year-old cemetery has been desecrated. A citizens committee is working on a master plan for Western Cemetery. Dogs are not the only item under study, but they are the most contentious.

In cities from California to New York and Alaska to Hawaii, dog owners are fighting for off-leash areas where their pets can run free. They’re organizing advocacy groups, putting up Web sites and packing public hearings. In San Francisco, disagreements about the threat of free-running dogs to native vegetation and a nesting area along the city’s coastal bluffs have prompted a lawsuit and calls for a congressional investigation.

Such disputes are not new, but they’ve heated up in the last five years as more people compete for open space, according to Claudia Kawczynska, editor of the Bark, a Berkeley magazine that proudly proclaims its roots in “off-leash activism.”

“I think a cemetery is a wonderful place, actually, because it honors what has come before, and there’s no better way to honor what’s come before than with the joy that dogs give,” Kawczynska says. “I could think of nothing better than to be greeted at the beginning of the day [by a dog] smelling my remains, just being with me somehow.”

In a densely populated section of Portland, the cemetery has become an increasingly popular spot to run dogs off their leashes. Owners arrive each morning, coffee mugs and coiled leashes in hand.

A chain-link fence around the 22 acres keeps pets from running into traffic, and the grounds feel open --not spooky, like some of the wooded areas in the city where dogs are also allowed off-leash.

But no matter how well-behaved or happy-looking the dogs, some people argue that they don’t belong in a cemetery--even when their owners use the plastic “Mutt Mitts” to pick up after them.

“Let’s put it this way: You could have a law that would say it’s OK if you stab people, as long as you pull the knife out and clean up the mess,” says Paul O’Neil, president of the local chapter of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal group. “As far as we’re concerned, the harm is already done.”

Western Cemetery was the city’s primary burial ground through the mid-19th century. Today, many of the white marble headstones lean or have fallen over. Some are broken. Others are illegible, worn down by the elements or covered in lichen.

David Eaton, president of the Friends of Western Cemetery, says the graveyard had become a magnet for drinking, drugs and other illicit activities before the dogs moved in.

Although Police Chief Michael Chitwood says his officers never considered the cemetery a trouble spot, he acknowledges isolated incidents of vandalism, teen drinking and sex over the years.

Anne Pringle, a member of the master plan committee, insists the cemetery is in worse shape now and can’t handle all the dogs that use it. She notes that heavy foot and paw traffic has carved a trail over an area of unmarked graves and eroded other paths. Pringle thinks the cemetery should bar off-leash dogs.

Eaton counters that dog owners are willing to compromise, perhaps limiting the hours when dogs can roam. But since the idea is to give dogs vigorous exercise, he says it doesn’t make sense to require them to stay leashed or on the paths, and he suggests people put fences around grave sites if they want the dogs to stay off.

Eaton and Pringle agree the city needs more fenced-in and off-leash dog runs, but for many dog owners, nothing competes with Western Cemetery’s convenience, beauty and friendly atmosphere.

Chuck Allen has been bringing his boxer, Bettis, to the cemetery for the two years he’s lived in Portland.

“This is the only place I come,” he says. “I love it.”