©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Dog owners unleash at Pastorius
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

As the weather has warmed, the issue of dogs running free in Pastorius Park has resurfaced. Both the Local and the Chestnut Hill Community Association have received complaints about unruly animals in recent weeks.

For years, the park has been an unofficial dog park for canine owners in and around Chestnut Hill. In the evenings, Pastorius teems with dogs running off-leash, despite the “Dogs must be on leash” rule posted in the park, as their owners stand nearby chatting.

“That’s always how it’s been here,” said Susan Extein of Lafayette Hill as she watched Chloe, her poodle, run around. “That’s why people come here, because the dogs can be unleashed, unofficially.”

While the Local was speaking to Extein, two other dog owners joined her, greeting each other — and the dogs — by name. Catherine Mancani of Mt. Airy was dog-sitting Patches and Nigel (both leashed) as well as walking her rat terrier, Otis (unleashed).

“This is the happiest place in the world to be,” Mancani said. She said the dog owners who go to the park have a community. Friends are made, relationships established; they help each other, such as with dog sitting.

Jon Bjornson, 73, from Mt. Airy said he has walked his dogs in Pastorius Park, unleashed, for at least 20 years, maybe more. As he spoke, his bichon fries, Prince William, and mixed terrier, Chewbacca, ran around his feet.

While this is an ideal haven for dog owners, others in the area have had less than ideal encounters with unleashed animals.

A dog that got away from its owner in the park ran onto an adjacent property, into a front yard and attacked a cat owned by Chestnut Hill’s Karen Rile and Larry Smith. In a letter to the editor, which ran April 27 in the Local, the couple described the experience and wrote that the feline had “sustained serious injuries, including multiple puncture wounds (bites).” They said they were grateful their children had not been hurt.

The dog’s owner heard about the letter and contacted Rile and Smith to offer to help with the cat’s medical bills.

In another incident, reported to Community Manager Betty Brady, a man complained that a romping canine had snatched his family’s lunch as they tried to picnic at Pastorius.

However, with no enforcement and a history of unleashed freedom in the park, there is little incentive for dog owners to leash their canines.

“I watch, I’m careful. I also watch to make sure each dog is attached to an owner,” said Extein, which isn’t difficult because most dog owners know or, at least, recognize each other.

Pastorius is part of Fairmount Park, therefore rules, such keeping dogs leashed, are enforced by the park rangers. District Three Manager Patricia Crossan, who oversees the park area in the city’s Northwest, said the majority of the entire 9,200-acre park is used to walk dogs, often unleashed. She said the rangers are “stretched too thin” — there are three full-time and some seasonal part-time rangers patrolling her section — and therefore the leash rule isn’t enforced consistently. She said there has been targeted enforcement at Pastorius Park in the past, but like elsewhere in the park, as soon as the rangers walk away, the dogs are usually unleashed.

Crossan’s complaint regarding the dogs in Pastorius Park is their effect on the grass. “It’s worse than a rugby football field,” she said. “The dogs cause the grass to be decimated.” Park employees just finished reseeding the grass at Pastorius last week, in preparation for the annual summer concert series, set to begin Wednesday, June 14.

Though Pastorius Park is not a dog park, a search online for Chestnut Hill dog parks refers to it:

“(Not an official leashless dog park) Large, unfenced area with lots of trees and a man-made pond. Beautiful setting.” And one web listing even says, “You are supposed to keep your dog leashed but no one does and I’ve never seen any police there enforcing it.”

About six years ago Susan Pizzano, who was recently elected vice president of the Physical Division for the Chestnut Hill Community Association, tried to establish a dog park within Pastorius. Pizzano, then vice president of the Social Division, and Maria Lachat, another CHCA board member, researched other parks and made a presentation to the CHCA and the Friends of Pastorius Park.

“I thought the dogs should be confined to a beautiful space,” Pizzano said. A dog park would fence in “a large part of the park,” where the dogs could run free. Pizzano said there was a lot of opposition to the idea — from those who wanted to let their dogs run free of fencing and from those who didn’t support any unleashing — and it was dropped.

Quita Horan, president of the Friends of Pastorius Park, would love to see the dogs remain leashed, but said that her organization is unable to enforce the rule. “It has to stop because something horrible is going to happen,” said Horan, who was attacked in the park by a dog about four years ago.

Contact staff writer Kristin Pazulski at 215-248-8819 or Kristin@chestnuthilllocal.com.