Arf! Arf! It's so fun to chase all these birds. Photos by Alan S. Hopkins

RASA GUSTAITIS

SOME OF THE luckiest dogs in the world run on Carmel Beach, romping as they please as their doting owners look on. When David E. Clark, a surveyor and musican, joined this crowd, he discovered "a subculture of dog walkers who love watching dogs be happy. . . . I always suspected a community here, and I was right," he writes in his book, Gods of Frolic: Dogs of Carmel Beach, "It just took a dog to grant me entrance."

His 60-page self-published book of photographs and dog biographies started out as a Christmas present. But so many people asked for a copy, he says, that he printed 250, then more. To his surprise, it's now in local bookstores, and the third printing is 2,500 copies - once again showing that many people love dogs.

How different the story in other coastal cities, where dog walkers chafe under leash-law restrictions. With more and more humans using parks and beaches for an array of activities, and more and more wildlife species losing habitat, canine opportunities are shrinking. More dogs come, more piles of droppings are left behind, and more people complain, prompting cities to enforce leash laws or adopt new restrictions.

DOG OWNERS UNITE
MANY DOG WALKERS behave much like parents at playgrounds. They tend to cluster in groups, admiring, rebuking, exchanging stories and advice. When someone gets a $50 ticket because an officer fails to understand a pet's need to run free in a "No Dogs" or "Dogs On Leash" area, the victim gets sympathy. So it was probably inevitable that dog owners would begin to organize, form networks, and lobby for more leash-free parks.

In Venice, Los Angeles, as in several other cities, a police crackdown provided the spark. People used to ignore the long-standing prohibition against dogs on sand. "Everyone would go out with a cup of coffee and run their dogs before they went to work," says Daryl Barnett, who lives by the beach, "until we were totally inundated with law enforcement."

True, "there was a problem with picking up," she admits. "The lifeguards complained." Police gave advance warning, then made good on it. After collecting several $77 tickets, Barnett and friends founded a group, Freeplay, to campaign for "an area for dogs to run as long as people were responsible." With the help of City Councilmember Ruth Galanter, an enclosed park near the beach has already been secured, the first dog park in west Los Angeles. "Some good came out of [the crackdown]," says Barnett. "People are picking up much more now. And dog owners are so grateful to have Westminster Park, they come from an hour's drive away."

Dog activist groups have sprung up in La Jolla, Huntington Beach, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Redwood City, Half Moon Bay, Berkeley, San Francisco, and elsewhere along the coast. They are campaigning for more space for dogs and also encouraging more responsible dog ownership.

Santa Barbara's Dog Pac was organized after the city "hired some patrol people and started giving tickets," said member Kristi Solberg. The city has 53 parks, but none allowed leash-free dogs, she said. The Dog Pac succeeded in winning permission to unleash pets in Los Positas Park and, at least for now, to keep them unleashed in the city's recently acquired Douglas Family Preserve (the former Wilcox property), which has long been a popular place for exercising and training dogs.

PROTECTING PLOVERS
IN SAN FRANCISCO, recent trouble has been blamed, in part, on a rare small bird that roosts and feeds right in the middle of Ocean Beach, where dogs (and people) have run happily unleashed for years. In 1993, the coastal population of the western snowy plover was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. It is believed that only 1,200 to 1,600 of these shorebirds remain, and five percent of them use this beach most of the year. The plover avoids predators by remaining motionless. Its coloration and behavior make it "virtually undetectable" on a broad sandy beach, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Looking for ways to prevent this species' extinction, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) fingered free-ranging dogs. A study, together with expert advice, indicated that of all forms of disturbance, including beach walkers and joggers, dogs were the most serious. A person or vehicle can pass within a dozen feet without causing a plover to move; if they come too close, it usually runs a short distance and settles again. But at the approach of an unleashed dog - a domesticated predator that, out of curiosity or instinct, will chase perceived prey - plovers fly off.

Long known for its tolerance of dogs "under voice control," the GGNRA began to enforce a leash regulation within the 2.2-mile stretch of beach used by plovers. This still left areas at both ends of this 3.1-mile beach open to dogs under voice control, as well as the clifftop area of adjacent Fort Funston, much of Philip Burton Beach, and two other beaches in the city. But the hackles of some dog walkers rose, to the point that one animal advocate urged that people protest by refusing to leash dogs in the plover area. He argued that the GGNRA had no firm scientific basis for its new policy.

At about the same time, the GGNRA reviewed policies elsewhere in the city. Mindful of its mission to protect natural resources while providing for recreation, it began to enforce leash requirements in other places where dogs had run free either because no leashes had been required or because requirements were not enforced. All this prompted dog walkers to organize in protest.

Some dog-less people, meanwhile, take the opposite view. "Dogs have use of most of the parks of the city. It's ridiculous that there aren't places for people to go without finding dogs," says Alan Hopkins of the Audubon Society. "A lot of parks just reek in the summer because people who bring dogs aren't responsible." The sight of dogs also tends to bring frowns to the faces of some volunteers who have been working to restore native plant communities in the GGNRA.

Some people continue to let their pets explore snowy plover territory, seeing the $50 tickets they get simply as the luck of the draw. But Field Ranger George Dugerian of the GGNRA has found that most willingly comply when they realize that they can help birds survive by leashing their dogs.

"Shorebirds are limited to a narrow area where things wash up that they can eat," Durgerian tells people, offering a look through his binoculars. "Every wave brings in food." Not just plovers, but other shorebirds too must eat and rest. Although dogs seldom catch birds, they flush them, forcing them to burn energy needed for long migrations. Dugerian figures that about half the dog walkers now keep their pets leashed in the plover area. Biologist Daphne Hatch, however, who conducted the plover study, guesses 20 percent. "The rangers are in uniform," she points out.

Dog advocates have recently gained ground in San Diego, but had no luck in Oceanside, where dogs are banned from beaches. Residents of a 550-unit beachfront condominium complex where no pets are allowed prevailed in opposing a proposal for opening a 500-foot beach strip to dogs.

In Half Moon Bay, San Mateo County, Barbara Judge of the Coastside Dog Club says that unlike other groups, "we do not want to be political activists." Though the group started as an effort to win more space, it now focuses on promoting "responsible ownership and good canine citizenship." This dog club recently held its second annual Doggy Day, with a veterinarian present to offer vaccinations, and intends to participate in setting up and maintaining a dog park on the ocean side of Highway 1. "We don't want to force ourselves on the community and have animosity from our neighbors," said Judge.

In many urban parks and on beaches, dog owners easily get away with being scofflaws. In San Francisco, only nine animal control officers enforce leash laws and respond to calls about raccoons in basements, cats in trees, wild birds in someone's kitchen, reports of neglected animals, and other emergencies. Dogs that do no more than run off leash are not a priority. "Enforcement goes in cycles," says Captain Alan Kerstein of the Los Angeles Police Department. When the complaints build up, agencies respond. Park officials say dog advocate groups are helpful in promoting responsible behavior among the human companions of dogs.

In the end, much depends on increasing awareness of others' diverse needs, be they humans or other creatures. "I had a dog, and I used to take it to the Palo Alto Baylands and let it run around in the pickleweed," says Hopkins. "Would I do that now? No. It's an educational process."