ohmidog!

We’ve got an ASPCA, and a HSUS, but what we need is an ADLU.

The American Doggie Liberties Union — if it existed — would fight all forms of doggie discrimination, both subtle forms and blatant ones, like this:

A Long Island dog park is charging visitors to its “big dog” play area up to $13 per visit on summer weekends, while visitors to the “small dog” play area pay nothing.

At West Hills, in Suffolk County, the fee is charged those who visit between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

“I feel sorry for them,” small-dog owner Michael Price is quoted as saying in this piece by NBC in New York. “But I am here in the small-dog park and very happy about that.”

Dana Richter was not. “I am unemployed,” Richter said. “I just can’t keep dropping money around every corner. Yet my dog needs exercise.”

Some big-dog owners, like Lisa LaMorte of Huntington Station, have written county lawmakers, asking for a reduction in the fee. But with Suffolk County facing budget problems, she may be out of luck.

According to Suffolk County officials, the higher fee for big dogs wasn’t intended as a penalty. It’s a result of  the “big dog” park being located in an area with parking and other amenities. “The fee structure that exists precedes the establishment of the dog park,” said county spokesperson Vanessa Baird-Streeter.

Baird-Streeter said anyone wishing to bring their big dogs to the park will not incur a fee Monday through Friday and prior to 8 a.m. and after 4 p.m. on weekends.

But big  dog owners lamented scaling back their visits. “This is the best dog park on Long Island,” said Laura Lerner, as she held her retriever Maki. “I come here every day …”

The big dog park is designated for dogs over 25 pounds.

It’s not one of Seattle’s most beloved works of outdoor art, but Gyro Jack has been a fixture at Belltown’s Denny Regrade Park for more than 30 years.

When part of the park, including the cement sculpture, was designated as an off-leash area for dogs, Gyro Jack became, in addition to all else he symbolizes — and don’t ask us what that is — a dog toy as well.

Some say it’s one that’s hazardous to their health.

In April, a six-month-old collie named Bailey broke one rear leg and injured the other after taking a dive off the top of the sculpture, KIRO reported last month.

Dog owner Jesse Wise said he walked to the top of the sculpture with Bailey. When he turned around to go back down, the dog either jumped or fell onto the pavement around the statue. Wise says the area with the sculpture should be made safer for dogs, possibly by laying mulch around it.

Apparently unconnected to that, the city Parks and Recreation Department has temporarily closed the park for improvements. In a press release, the department said plans include removing old surfacing and improving drainage.

The Belltown Local reports that the city plans to remove the wood chip mulch that serves as a ground cover around much of the dog park and replace it with pea gravel.

Whether the area at the base of the sculpture will be cushioned is not mentioned in the plans.

The off-leash area closed May 7, and will reopen Monday, May 28.

Boo, hiss and a big thumbs down for the San Clemente City Council, which, at least for now, has rejected a proposal to allow dogs on a small piece of beach for a few hours a day.

The council, while nixing plans for a dog beach in the California town, instructed staff to start working on a plan to allow leashed dogs in more parks and build more fenced open space for dogs to run. The city now has one dog park.

The council’s main concerns seemed to be that dog waste could compound existing problems with bacteria levels on the city’s beaches, and that its limited and eroding beach space should be reserved for use by people.

“I do think we need to increase the amenities for dogs and pets,” council member Tim Brown said at a Tuesday council meeting. “[But] we don’t have an abundant beach line — we have a strand that has been disappearing over the years.”

Tom Bonigut, assistant city engineer, said any increase in bacterial levels in San Clemente’s coastal waters could result in steep fines from regional water quality agencies.

Even Councilman Bob Baker, a dog owner, was against letting dogs run on the beach, according to Patch.com.

“Your dog should be on a leash at all times when you’re in public,” Baker said. “If you’re letting your dog run around on the beach without a leash, you’re making a big mistake.”

The strand of beach in the proposal runs from Dije Court to Mariposa Point and would have been open to dogs from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m.

“I don’t want to swim in dog poop water,” Mimi Lane (pictured above) told the council, according to the Orange County Register.

About a dozen residents spoke against the beach plan, while about two dozen spoke in favor of it.

The city estimates it is home to about 16,000 dogs, only about 5,000 of which are licensed.

(Photo: Fred Swegles / Orange County Register)

The Winston-Salem area is about to become even more dog-friendly, with the opening, as early as this summer, of a third dog park — the dog park at Tanglewood.

On top of that, the Winston-Salem Dash, the minor league baseball team that held its first “Pups in the Park” game last summer, has announced it plans to hold five this year.

A spokesman for the group raising money for the dog park at Tanglewood (off Highway 158 in Clemmons) reports that $135,000 of the $150,000 it needs to build the park has been raised, and construction could begin in April or May.

If so, Dan Greer told the Winston-Salem Journal, the park, with separate sections for large and small dogs, could open almost a nearly year ahead of schedule.

Dog park organizers have until the end of 2012 to raise the money needed to build the park, and they hope to raise the remaining $15,000 by selling custom bricks, engraved with donor’s names, or their dog’s, that will be part of the entrance.

The bricks are $125 each, and they can be ordered here.

The other two dog parks in the Winston-Salem area are at Washington Park and Horizons Park.

Meanwhile, at BB&T Park, home of the Winston-Salem Dash, dogs will invited to five baseball games this coming season.

Pups in the Park nights are scheduled for Tuesday, April 24; Wednesday, May 30; Wednesday, June 13; Wednesday, July 25; and Wednesday, August 15.

Dogs require proof of rabies vaccinations. For additional information or to reserve your tickets, contact Sarah Baumann at sarah.baumann@wsdash.com or call 336-714-6878. More information can be found at the Forsyth County Humane Society website.

Here’s some amazing camera work that gives you a dogs-eye view of an afternoon at the dog park.

Kelsey Wynn teamed up with his Great Dane, Bishop, to shoot the footage. He attached one GoPro camera to Bishop’s harness and used a second to capture dogs at play from different angles.

The unusual angles, and use of slow motion, provide a different perspective of dogs at play — closer, likely, to how it all appears to dogs.

Just a week after widely circulated reports of nails being found in cheese at a dog park — reports that mostly neglected to point out the incident happened months ago in South America — nails in meat have been found at a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, dog park

Lancaster police said two “large chunks of meat” were discovered Monday morning at Buchanan Park dog park, each loosely embedded with several framing nails.

Police said the meat was found  just inside the fence by a young girl and her father who brought their dog to the park.

The nails were “loosely attached” to the underside of the meat, according to the Lancaster New Era

“The dog wasn’t hurt,” an officer said. “It didn’t even touch the stuff.”

The investigation is continuing. Police asked that anyone with information call 717-735-3300.

It still only exists in artist renderings, but another step toward building a dog park in North Carolina’s Tanglewood Park will come this weekend, with a Saturday “Bark in the Park” festival aimed at raising money for the project.

The Humane Societies of Forsyth and Davie Counties are sponsoring the event — Saturday (Oct. 1) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Activities will include a Doggie Jog, a Blessing of the Animals, expert advice from local vets and professional trainers, a mobile doggie spa, agility demonstrations and contests.

Local adoption and rescue agencies will also be on hand with adoptable animals.

The proposed dog park will be located on 2.3 acres in the park’s northern end, near the intersection of Clemmons and Harper Roads.

The Forsyth CountyCommissioners voted to approve the park in July, but with the caveat that it be completed by 2012.

Plans for the park include separate large and small dog lots, an area for obedience classes, watering stations & pet waste valets, an area to hose off dogs, and some type of water feature so the dogs can cool off during the warmer weather, according to the Dog Park at Tanglewood website.

The group has raised about $20,000 of its $150,000 goal, and it continues to seek funds, services and materials from individuals and businesses.

One huge donation came from Vulcan Materials Company, which contributed $11,000 worth of construction materials.

The project also received proceeds from a recent ”Pups in the Park” night  at Winston-Salem’s minor league baseball park, home of the Dash.

Arizona’s Cosmo Dog Park may soon be using dog waste to shed some light.

The town of Gilbert is looking at teaming up with Arizona State University students to build a “digester” — like one we showed you last year — that will create methane gas to power, for starters, one street lamp at the park.

The project is scheduled to go before the Gilbert Town Council next month for approval.

Students from Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus in Mesa hope to design and create the “dog waste digester,” according to the Arizona Republic.

The town is seeking a corporate sponsor for the project, estimated to cost $25,000.

Cosmo Park, which opened in 2006, draws more than 600,000 visitors annually and regularly shows up on lists of the nation’s best dog parks.

Former Gilbert Councilwoman Linda Abbott has been pushing the project after learning of the machine installed last year as a public-art project in a park in Cambridge, Mass.

(The Cambridge machine was a temporary project and is no longer in operation.)

Gilbert officials have held three meetings with ASU on the plan to design the machine, which would consist of a repository tank and digester.

It will be supervised by professor Kiril D. Hristovski, who will challenge her students to design a machine suited to Arizona’s climate, taking advantage of solar power.

“The principals of anaerobic digestion are the same,” he said. “We’re going to challenge the students to come up with innovative solutions that are unique.”

Rather than tossing poop bags into the park’s trash can’s, dog owners would collect their dogs waste in biodegradable bags, deposit it in the digester and turn a hand crank to stir the mixture so the methane rises to the top.

Name: Piero

Age: 6

Breed: Yellow Lab

Encountered: At Washington Perk, a coffee house/grocery/deli in Winston-Salem, N.C. that — just down the street from the city’s dog park — has become one of Ace’s favorite hangouts.

Backstory: We were enjoying some breakfast Saturday morning on the outside deck when Piero arrived with his humans.

His owners said the name was Italian for Peter, or at least one variation of that, and that they gave all their pets Italian names.

Like Ace, Piero sat quietly, and grew more intent when food arrived.

Piero seemed a very happy dog. Being a yellow lab, he may not be headed for the dean’s list, his owner noted.

But then he did know enough to get into the shade, which was more than you could say for us.

(Roadside Encounters is a regular feature of Travels With Ace. To see them all click here.)

Humans need a play stance.

I came to this conclusion yesterday — adding yet another item to the list of things dogs do better than us – as Ace and I arrived for the first time at the only dog park in Winston-Salem proper (and Winston-Salem is pretty proper).

Being new and mostly friendless in the town in which we’ve decided to temporarily base ourselves, we left our quarters in the basement of a mansion and, for a little socialization, headed a couple miles down the road to Washington Park, where dogs can run and play in a fenced-in area.

Of course, Ace hardly romped at all. It being a new scene for him, his first priority was to give all things a good sniffing  – other dogs included. But, on this day, he was more the sniffee than the sniffer.

The second I closed the gate behind us, five other dogs — realizing there was a new face — bounded over for a whiff, following so close behind his rear end that, when he stopped abruptly … well you know the rest.

Butts aside, it’s an intriguing thing to watch, this seeming welcome, and one I noticed often back at Ace’s old park in Baltimore. When a first-timer arrives, all the other dogs come over to give the new guy a sniff. To view that as an act of kindness is, of course, anthropomorphic. But still it’s kind of sweet.

This weekend, Ace — though he was used to being the dean of his old park — was the new kid on the block.

He courteously sniffed those who sniffed him, but was more interested in checking out the space, the water bowl and the humans than in playing with the other dogs. We’d been there a full hour before he even chased another dog — all of whom were playing energetically with each other.

Dee Dee, a beagle, and Bailey, a whippet mix, (both pictured atop this post) had great play stances and used them often: Butts pointed skyward, front legs stretched all the way out, heads lowered. It, in the canine world, is a universal signal, a way of saying “You don’t need to be afraid of me, this is all in good fun, it’s playtime, let’s go.”

I can think of no counterpart when it comes to human body language — no gesture or stance we have that is as easily noticeable and understood. The handshake? No, that’s just standard procedure, basic manners. Perhaps the one that came closest was the peace sign.

Rather than having a universal play stance, we resort to words, which often only make things more confusing. We try to make sense of subtle body language and interpret what we think are queues, neither of which we’re that good at, either.

All that could be resolved if we only had a human play stance — a position we could place our bodies in that signifies we’re open to getting to know a fellow human.

We’ve got the war stance down. We all know the fighting stance, or at least enough to put our dukes up. But there’s no simple gesture or motion we humans can make — at least not without possibility of criminal charges or restraining orders – that sends a signal that peace, harmony and fun are ahead.

We can’t, without repercussions, do the butt-sniffing thing. We can’t, of course, go around peeing on each other’s pee. 

But why can’t we come up with a play stance — one that says I’m open to getting to know you better, and perhaps even frolicking a bit?

Because that would be too easy for a species as complex as ours? Too honest? Too direct?

It was easier when we were children. A simple ”Wanna play?” sufficed. Somehow, on the way to becoming adults, we started opting instead for far less direct, far stupider comments, like “Do you come here often?” and “What’s your sign?”

Adopting a play stance for the human race, at this point – with all that we have evolved, with how sophisticated and suspicious and manipulative we as a society have become — would be difficult. It might be too late.

Two thumbs up and a grin? Standing with arms outstretched, knees bent, while waving people toward you? Most anything I can come up to signal you are accepting new people into your life would have the exact opposite effect, and send them running.

In the final analysis, being human, maybe we’re stuck with words, and small talk, and being less straightforward, sincere and, quite likely, pure of heart and motive than dogs.

Ace will make friends his way, and I will make friends mine (which is most often with his help). But between him and my conversational skills, I’ll be fine. And by the way, do you come here often?