An East Side woman who sat on the park board's now defunct dog strategy task force says a 2008 Ipsos Reid estimate of between 110,000 and 145,500 dogs in the city is wrong.
Elizabeth Wilkinson is accusing the park board of inflating the numbers of dogs in the city to justify spending even more money on off-leash dog areas. "That data collection would never hold water in real world terms," said Wilkinson, who studied data collection and research at BCIT.
The Ipsos Reid estimate is included in a 45-page staff report called Update: Dog Off-Leash Areas, which was presented to the park board's planning and environment committee last month and is available on the park board's website. The report details the history of the park board's off-leash program, which began in 1997 with four designated areas. Today the program includes 35 off-leash areas across the city, which depending on whom you speak to is too many or too few.
The Ipsos Reid estimate is based on the 2006 federal census, which found of the city's 273,804 households, about 36 per cent own dogs. According to Ipsos Reid, that works out to about 1.475 dogs per 98,679 households for a total of 145,551, or just over 4,000 dogs per offleash area.
In 2009, the city's Animal Control Shelter estimated the number of dogs in the city was almost 105,000.
Wilkinson said regardless of how many dogs Ipsos Reid guesses there are in the city, fewer than 30,000 are licensed so that's the number the park board and Animal Control should be dealing with. Based on the Ipsos Reid survey, the park board wants to increase off-leash areas across the city. Wilkinson vehemently disagrees with that plan and says the city and park board should recognize only licensed dogs.
"If you're not keeping a dog legally, you can't ask the city for more services," said Wilkinson. "They refuse to buy a licence for their dog, but my taxes are supposed to help pay for their services?"
Wilkinson wants special constables used for enforcing licensing and leash bylaws, which is the practice in Calgary, a city with 90 per cent licence compliance.
Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»park board chair Aaron Jasper says enforcement and education are important parts of the park board's plan moving forward.
"There are a lot of people who thumb their nose at the rules so we do need that resource," Jasper said of working with the city's bylaw enforcement officers.
He added due to the ever-increasing number of dogs in the city, the park board is recommending it should be standard practice to consider off-leash areas for any new park or park redevelopment.
"It's a much better use of tax dollars to introduce off-leash areas as a design element, instead of trying to come up with the money later," said Jasper.
He said several of the draft principals the park board is considering are designating off-leash areas that work for all park users, ensuring off-leash areas are carefully placed within parks and using physical barriers to separate off-leash areas from the rest of a park.
Jasper said fenced offleash areas like the ones at Nelson and Devonian Harbour parks have proven very successful.
"I know some dogs owners won't like it, but we have to make sure everyone is safe," said Jasper. "It's obvious those imaginary lines dividing offleash areas from other park users isn't working."
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