Urban hounds in bondage
by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR
Published in the Montreal Mirror Sept. 11, 2000
In the dog-friendly confines of elegant Percy Walters Park, bitches and studs frolic freely, as they scratch themselves, establish territory and check out potential mates. Meanwhile their dogs do largely the same things.
For decades, dog lovers have convened on this picturesque, sloping Penfield Avenue field tucked inside the low redbrick walls that once fenced off a millionaire’s estate. Unlike my part of NDG where snarling, predatory hounds devour 10 pounds of raw beef and get their teeth sharpened daily, this seems a laid-back, successfully self-governing community of dog fanciers.
So naturally somebody had to try to put an end to it. That somebody was an unnamed middle-aged woman – rumoured to inhabit a condo behind the Trudeau mansion - who has slapped the city with a cease and desist order to force dogs to wear leashes. The complainant accurately points out that Percy Walters Park was never meant to be Poochy Walkers Park because the donor, a cigarette company official and member of the Royal Automobile Club, gave his land to the city in 1944 as a place for kids to play.
Walters decreed that there never be any playgrounds on the spot, that it be named be named after him for all eternity and so forth. If we violate Percy’s commandments, he will get cryogenically unfrozen and kick some ass. Failing that, the land would revert to a nearby hospital.
Typically, such deed clauses are easily changed with a simple provincial legal amendment. And traditionally the city has diplomatically smoothed out periodic disagreements over the illicit dog run. But this time, rather than let sleeping dogs lie, the city has cried havoc and let slip the dogs of the canine patrol. First they handed out tickets and pamphlets. Next, public works staffers welded-open the wrought iron gates that make the park safe for the hounds. After somebody un-welded them, city workers – complete with police escort - removed the gates entirely.
“I’ve been coming here for seven years and never seen a problem. We’re forced to buy a dog license, so we get the financial responsibilities of dog ownership without receiving benefits of it,” says leashless dog owner Martin Hasler who claims that he once unsuccessfully tried to write his dog off on his taxes as a legal dependent.
“Dog owners move to apartments nearby just so they can live close to this place,” says fellow illicit dog walker Genevieve Larocque. She asks, “where else can we go to let our dogs run?”
When asked that question, a city official reads an address from a list of 20 city-approved dog runs. “I’m not sure where that is. I think it might be in Point St Charles.” When reminded that the Point is miles away, the official replies, “yes, but don’t forget, a lot of these dog owners bring their cars to walk their dogs.”