ohmidog!

There’s an experiment underway up in Newton, Mass — a compromise of sorts between those who would never allow dogs to be off leashes in a municipal park and those who think dogs need to, once in a while, run free.

Up to now, most cities dealing with the same conflicted interests, have tried only a couple of alternatives: One is passing laws that require dogs to be leashed, which many people don’t bother to obey, which leads to crackdowns and ill will. The other is creating fenced in dog parks, which costs money, not a whole lot of which is available these days.

Newton is trying something different. A nine-month dog park experiment at Cold Spring Park was launched last week, allocating one area of the park to off-leash dogs, and, while neighbors of the park objected even before it started, given a chance it just might work.

In a way, it’s a perfect solution. Dogs can run. People who dislike dogs can avoid the off-leash dog part of the park. And police and animal control officers can still cite dog owners whose off-leash dogs stray from the designated area.

Lee McIntyre, a dog owner who helped spearhead the experiment, told the Boston Globe the change will benefit everyone.

“We have had an underground illegal dog park here for years,” said McIntyre, who estimated nearly 200 people bring their dogs to Cold Spring. “… Now that there is an official place to bring dogs, a place with a set of rules, it should really keep them from being places they shouldn’t be.”

McIntyre was at Cold Spring Park Tuesday sitting in a lawn chair beside a new sign that read “Dogs must be leashed until you reach the off-leash area.”

“It took so long for us to get this park,” said McIntyre, a teacher who has two German shepherds and a golden retriever. “I just want to make sure that people follow the rules so we can keep it this way.”

For the past 10 years, the Board of Alderman has been discussing the possibility of off-leash sites for dogs. Alderwoman Susan Albright chaired the task force charged with tackling the issue.

“The task force is on a path which is really a social experiment,” Albright said. “Can we change behavior in Newton? Can we get folks who have not been obeying the law to come forward and establish legal dog parks? Can we satisfy the neighbors near these parks that this is in their best interest? Can we satisfy the stewards of the land, i.e., the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Conservation Commission, that establishing legal parks are ultimately good for the land?”

The Board of Aldermen voted to allow dogs to be off-leash in “designated areas” in 2007.

At that time, no such places existed. So McIntyre and some of his fellow dog walkers, calling themselves Friends of Cold Spring Dog Park, began a campaign to make part of the park an off-leash site.