Unleashed: The battle between dog owners and parents heats up

Dogs being off-leash and being in areas they shouldn’t be is an ongoing issue for people in Western Washington, especially in highly populated and dense areas like the city of Seattle. KIRO 7 learned that there are issues across Seattle when it comes to city parks.

“It turns into a really difficult struggle between people who want to exercise their dogs and find a lot of joy in socializing their dog and socializing with other dog owners and people who want to use parks for non-dog related activities,” Kaneer Jenkins, a dog owner, said. She pointed out that it seems there just aren’t enough places to take dogs to run and socialize in the city.

“There’s not enough dog parks to take them,” she said. Mrinal Yadava said he’s used to letting his dog walk with him off-leash because he just moved from Oregon where laws are more relaxed.

“There’s just little areas that have now become just by virtue of people letting their dogs off leash kind of quasi off-leash areas,” he said. Esteban Rodriguez is the Division Director of the Seattle Animal Shelter and said they get a lot of complaints about this issue.

“People pick a certain hour when they know that hopefully nobody is around and you have groups of people running dogs off leash,” he said. He sent KIRO 7 a breakdown of the number of complaints for dogs off-leash and the data shows that in 2023 there were 412 complaints, up from 350 the previous year. KIRO 7 spoke with a local mom at a playground that specifically does not allow dogs and she told us that there was an instance where her son was chased by a dog.

“Is my kid going to be okay because my kid isn’t a toy that the dog should be chasing and it’s a school playground area where specifically dogs shouldn’t be on the playground,” Rebecca Drieling said. Along with the safety factor, there’s often damage left behind by dogs if they dig holes or if owners fail to clean up after them.

“It also ruins the soccer fields to have dogs running around tearing up the turf,” Drieling said. Seattle Parks said it repairs fields as needed because of damage and wear but that there are no additional costs to fix any type of damage.

“I want the middle school students to be able to engage in sports and activities freely without a dog coming into their territory,” Kaneer Jenkins said. “I also want a space for my dog to run around and be a dog.” If you’re caught in a dog-free zone with a dog or your dog is off-leash, you could face a $70-$150 fine. Rodriguez said it’s important to report any incidents to animal control: https://www.seattle.gov/animal-shelter/animal-control.