Emotions Unleashed by Canine Lovers

Helen Nicolle stands in Ventura’s Camino Real Park, discussing the emergence of a new political bloc in the county. Her constituents simply want freedom: to roam, socialize as they wish and chase Frisbees at will.

Three dogs sit at her heels. They sniff, wag their tails and let their sloppy tongues hang out, innocently unaware of their role in an emerging movement.

Then, a momentary crisis. One of the dogs backs out of its collar and leash.

This is against the law.

“That was an accident,” her friend mutters. “I hope they’ll understand.”

They are the Ventura Police Department. And DOG, or the Dog Owners’ Group, was meeting that Thursday evening in the park as part of a movement that has taken off this summer: the rights of dogs to spend part of their lives in Ventura’s parks without leashes.

The west Ventura County DOG is one in a string of dog owner groups organizing across Southern California as community parks become more crowded and space more valuable.

Until recently, there was no crisis in Ventura County to draw dog owners together.

But, according to dog owner Pat DeSimone, that changed in June after an explosive incident. An off-leash dog wandered into a volleyball game in Arroyo Verde Park. A shouting match erupted between a player and the dog’s owner. It escalated into a fight. The player was arrested and, she said, made a big stink about off-leash dogs.

Before then, Ventura looked the other way when dogs frolicked without leashes.

But in the last couple of months, police have been giving tickets.

So 100 members of the dog group approached the City Council. They began monthly organizational meetings that draw 60 to 80 people and their dogs. And they set up talks with officials from the Parks and Recreation Department to work out a compromise: Are there certain hours that dogs can roam free? Can Ventura get a dog park?

“It’s the first of its kind I’ve seen,” parks manager Mike Montoya said. “They are passionate. But there are passionate people on the other side. Older people. People with small kids.”

Ventura Police Lt. Carl Handy said the crackdown stems not from one incident but from a flurry of complaints through the summer.

Vicious dogs have had a high profile recently. In Ojai, two Great Danes made headlines when they attacked a woman jogging in a park. And San Francisco is still reeling from the death of a woman attacked by two dogs allegedly bred by associates of imprisoned neo-Nazis.

“We have a larger problem than a single incident,” Handy said. “When you identify a problem, you can’t stick your head in the sand. . . . It’s time to come up with a solution. We can’t pretend the dogs aren’t running loose.”

According to county animal control figures, there were 203 dog bites in the city of Ventura from 1999 to 2000. That is down from the peak year of 1996-1997.

Kathy Jenks, director of the county’s Animal Regulation Department, said the problem is mainly weekend dog walkers and out-of-towners. The DOG people are probably the best owners in the county, she said.

The group’s members “need to understand that the majority of dog owners are not like them,” Jenks said.

Group members say they know this and want to cooperate with the city. But most consider the dogs family. They say they need a dog park. The only one in the county is half an hour away, in Thousand Oaks.

They are discussing possibilities with the city, including a dog park and “time slicing,” in which dog owners are allowed to take their dogs off their leashes at specific times.

Montoya said the Parks Department is expected to propose a dog park in next year’s program. The City Council would have the final say.

70 Turn Out for Meeting

There are about 70 people at the evening meeting in Camino Real Park. Half of them have brought their dogs, all on leashes. They talk with each other, but mostly they talk to the dogs--their own and each other’s. Many of them remember the dogs’ names before they remember the owners’ names.

It’s hard to have an organized meeting when your subject is so frisky, so friendly, so cute. And when you’re upset.

“You can get a ticket even if you’re not even bothering anybody, or if nobody’s there,” a woman yells. “It’s not reasonable! It’s punitive!”

“I assume the police are out there giving tickets for littering,” a woman shouts.

A woman named CeCe Terry, in a “My Dog Loves Me” sweatshirt, takes center stage and cheers the “canines of Camino Real” and the “hounds of Arroyo Verde.” She is calling for a park cleanup that she hopes will bring good publicity to the group.

“It’s gonna be a poop party,” she says.

The owners share park tips, about where owners can still get away with taking their dogs off leashes. They decry the $135 ticket. One woman admits she lets her dog free--”How would you like to live on a leash?”--but she won’t give her name. She does reveal that her dog’s name is Penny.

Juliette Wrablik shows off a design she thinks would be perfect for a T-shirt, if they need one. It says, “Dogs Deserve Freedom Too!” Above the slogan, a Dane-greyhound mix she calls “Phantom the Wonder Dog” soars across the American flag.

Her own border collie, Morgana, isn’t here. But she has pictures of her in her purse. Morgana has six beds. She has a seat belt in the car. Unlike her owner, she eats organic food.

These are dogs worth fighting for.

“I don’t think [city officials] consider dogs like humans or anything. And they are to us,” said Annie Dransfeldt, who credits her dog, Dane, with calming her anxiety attacks and even gave him a fourth birthday party at Arroyo Verde Park. “They are our kids.”