The proposed Trailside Killer Enabling Ordinance
By David V. Mitchell
Current proposals by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Marin Open Space District to ban unleashed dogs anywhere in their jurisdictions are yet another example of the increasingly mindless authoritarianism of local park officials.
Let me make clear from the get-go I do not believe dogs leashed or unleashed should be allowed in every park everywhere. And in some parks, leashed dogs are appropriate but unleashed dogs are not.
But the enemies of dogs, who would ban unleashed dogs from fire roads in the Marin Open Space District or from beaches where they have traditionally run free, are making a strong case against increasing local and federal parkland. They’re actually bolstering President Bush’s attempts to undo President Clinton’s 11th-hour executive orders that created more national parks.
With cruel cynicism, the anti-dog folks have begun citing two attack dogs, which last month fatally mauled San Francisco resident Diane Whipple, as evidence that people should not be allowed to play fetch with their pets on the beach.
These folks don’t bother to mention that the attack dogs were trained by white supremacists to guard illicit drug labs. Nor do they acknowledge that these mastiff-Canary Island dogs are a crossbreed developed for fighting and that the lawyers who owned them appear to be dangerous loonies.
The fact is, when pushed about their antipathy toward dogs, women tend to complain about the canine habit of sniffing crotches or pooping where they shouldn’t. Unpleasant behavior, no doubt, but it hardly justifies eliminating virtually all public places where masters can throw sticks for their dogs to retrieve.
A more serious complaint is that when a dog comes bounding up, people don’t necessarily know whether it is aggressive. In fact, only the most irresponsible pet owners allow aggressive dogs to run free. Furthermore, as the Marin Humane Society noted last week, dogs running free are actually less aggressive than those on leashes because they are not trying to protect territory.
Nonetheless, it is true that dogs occasionally bite people. Obviously, most bites are far less serious than what Miss Whipple received; that’s why her case has received so much publicity. Here in Marin County, the Humane Society puts repeat biters to death.
I am not trying in any way to discount the tragic death of Miss Whipple. Yet it must be kept in perspective. The California Department of Justice last year reported that in 1999 (the most recent statistics available), humans murdered 293 other humans in just the San Francisco Bay Area. Few of those deaths received the attention of Miss Whipple’s. None resulted in serious calls for restricting any human activity. Indeed, the public seems unfazed that the California Attorney General’s database currently contains a list of the remains of 150 unidentified children.
To my mind, no civilian should have the right to own any assault weapon, whether it be an assault rifle or an attack dog. Even the Canary Islands, where mastiff-Canary Island dogs were first bred, has banned them.
If the Marin Open Space District enacts a ban on unleashed dogs accompanying their owners on fire roads (as they have proposed to do) district officials – just to be honest – should refer to it as "Trailside Killer Enabling Ordinance."
In 1981, you’ll recall, a San Francisco ex-con named David Carpenter was arrested on charges of killing eight people on the trails of Mount Tamalpais and the Point Reyes National Seashore. In addition, he was charged with killing a woman on a trail in Santa Cruz County and was named as a suspect in the disappearance of three other women.
Carpenter has since been convicted of murder in connection with Marin and Santa Cruz county cases. He previously had been imprisoned for raping, kidnapping, and bludgeoning women in San Francisco’s Presidio, in Santa Cruz County, and in Calaveras County.
No one can say with certainty that any of these victims, who were mostly female hikers, would be alive today if they had been accompanied by a dog, but I have to believe that their chances of being attacked would have been far less. Were I a woman hiking in Marin open space, I personally would like the security of being accompanied by a dog – even if I occasionally had to apologize for its rude sniffing, exuberant jumping up on strangers, or leaving poop in unfortunate places.
If officialdom caves in to the hysteria of the moment, don’t be surprised if attacks on women increase. For the moment, those open spaces where many people feel safe to walk alone are the places they can take their dogs.