(Article originally published in Downeast Dog News, January 2009)

Every morning of every season dogs are free to run, swim, play fetch and interact with each other on Willard Beach—a mile long stretch of sandy beach between Fisherman’s Point and Fort Preble in South Portland.

While owners believe allowing their dogs to run and play off leash is essential to the quality of their pet’s life, the South Portland City Council is weighing a series of recommendations from the Willard Beach Task Force that include requiring dogs to remain leashed while at the beach.

In addition, a group called Save Willard Beach is pushing the council to ban dogs from the beach at all times during the summer. The council is also looking at a proposal to require dogs to be leashed in other parks throughout the city as well.

Over the past two months the city council has held three workshops on the question of whether to further restrict dogs on the beach and in other recreational areas, according to Assistant City Manager Erik Carson. He said that the council’s biggest concern is ensuring that public recreational facilities may be shared and enjoyed by all users.

Current city ordinances require dogs to be leashed on all public roads, sidewalks, the Greenbelt Walkway and Mill Creek Park. The ordinances, however, do allow dogs to be off leash at Willard Beach, Hinckley Park, Spring Point Light Park and Bug Light Park, with the exception that dogs are restricted to the hours of 6 to 9 a.m. between April 30 and Oct. 1 on Willard Beach.

While Carson admits it’s a small minority of dogs that are allowed to act irresponsibly, he said that dog ownership is a privilege and the city is allowed to regulate dog access for the betterment of all residents and visitors. “We have to make sure that everyone can enjoy the resource,” he said of Willard Beach and other parks in the city.

But Crystal Goodrich, president of the South Portland Dog Owner’s Group (SoPoDOG), who takes her dog Scooby to Willard Beach nearly every day, said that there is no justification for the city council to consider limiting off-leash access. “There have only been a handful of complaints, and even the animal control officer who patrols the beach regularly says there is not a big problem,” she said.

Goodrich also said that SoPoDOG was first organized about 10 years ago. The goals of the group are to keep the city dog friendly, advocate for off-leash access to recreational facilities and to educate dog owners on the use of open spaces within the city. She said that the dog owners who frequent Willard Beach provide supervision and monitoring of their dogs and do pick up after their dogs.

In fact, she said that many of the dog owners not only pick up dog waste but other litter as well. “It’s generally accepted that Willard Beach is very well kept and trash cans and bags are provided to dispose of dog waste,” she said.

Goodrich also believes that allowing off-leash access to the beach attracts people to the Willard Beach neighborhood. For instance, she knows of people who vacation and rent in the Willard Beach area specifically because they know their dogs are allowed to run freely on the beach.

To the argument of the Save Willard Beach group that dogs are “taking over” the beach, Goodrich said that the most dogs she has ever counted on the beach at one time are between 50 and 60, and that was only on a very busy holiday weekend.

Peggy Stewart, treasurer of SoPoDOG, has a 4-year-old yellow Lab named Remy that she takes to Willard Beach every day. She lives about a half mile from the beach and said her move to South Portland from downtown Boston three years ago was “somewhat dog related.”

When Remy was a puppy, living in urban Boston wasn’t too difficult, but as he grew Stewart realized she needed to live where her large, rambunctious dog could run and swim freely. Her parents live in Kennebunk and a friend mentioned to Stewart that dogs were welcome on Willard Beach. She visited South Portland on a spring day and fell in love with the beach and the surrounding neighborhood. “All the dogs and people I met that day were friendly,” Stewart said. “It just seemed like kismet.”

Stewart said that 95 percent of the people she’s met and become friendly with since moving to Maine are other dog owners who take their dogs to the beach. “Walking the beach every day is an enormous part of my life. I have wonderful relationships with the other dog owners. We can converse and relax. It’s a really unique place and a very comforting part of my routine,” she said.

Stewart is sympathetic to people who want to enjoy a walk on the beach without dogs running up to them, but she emphatically denied that dogs “run in packs” or that the dogs are often involved in scuffles, an argument put forth by some looking to ban dogs from the beach. “In the three years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen any big pack activity and never saw a dog fight,” she said.

Stewart and Goodrich both said the most frustrating part of the discussions now going on is that the council seems ready to impose new restrictions without allowing SoPoDOG to conduct an education campaign, create better and clearer signage explaining the rules and perhaps even creating a “code of good behavior” that dog owners would be expected to live by.

“It just seems like the council is ready to make a bunch of new rules for a relatively small group of people,” Stewart said.

She points to the success of the Dog Advisory Committee in Kennebunk, which has worked hard to educate dog owners on responsible use of the beaches there. “They’ve taken an incredibly effective and productive approach and said ‘good dogs with responsible owners will be welcome.’ I don’t see why we can’t try that in South Portland, too,” Stewart said.

In addition to the approach taken by Kennebunk, Goodrich argued that many of the communities surrounding South Portland have much looser dog access rules. For instance in Old Orchard Beach dogs are allowed off leash on the beach before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m. during the summer. And, in Scarborough, dogs are allowed on the beach off leash from sunrise to 9 a.m. from June 15 to September 15.

On its Web site, though, the Save Willard Beach group argues the rights of humans are more important than the rights of dogs. To that end, the group’s main goals are to ban dogs from Willard Beach in the summer and to challenge the “special interest groups that seek to impose their narrow interests for Willard Beach policy.”

Also on its Web site, the group said that it is concerned that Willard Beach has become known as a “regional dog beach” and thinks that allowing dogs to defecate on the beach in the summer presents a health hazard while also being visually offensive. In addition, the group argues that many people, particularly young children, are frightened at being barked at, jumped on, licked and sniffed by dogs on the beach.

In its report, though, the Willard Beach Task Force refutes the health hazard issue raised by the Save Willard Beach group. The task force’s report states that “Dogs are not significant carriers of human disease . . .” and that “there is no medical or scientific health risk from human contact with canine fecal matter on saltwater beaches.”

In addition, the task force said that during his regular patrols of the beach Animal Control Officer Cory Hamilton has not witnessed any dogs jumping on people and that most users not only pick up after their own dogs, but will pick up other dog waste as well.

Goodrich said that since the arguments by the Save Willard Beach group for limiting dog access have all been refuted, it’s clear the city council should “keep things the way they are.” She also argued that the Save Willard Beach group is “resorting to scare tactics” to try to convince the council to impose new restrictions on dog access.

“We are a close-knit community eager to defend access to recreational areas for our dogs,” Goodrich said of the SoPoDOG group.

To that end the group has recently started a formal membership drive, asking for annual dues of $5 per member, which would be used to help create educational materials and to allow the group to keep advocating for off-leash access at Willard Beach and other open space in the city.

“The most important thing that people have to realize is that if they do nothing, they will lose access for their dogs. This isn’t just a Willard Beach issue, this is a citywide threat. If people want to continue to exercise their dogs off leash they need to behave responsibly and call their city councilor,” Goodrich said.

For more information on SoPoDOG, go online to www.sopodog.com. For the South Portland City Council’s meeting schedule and agendas, go online to www.southportland.org.