The last off-leash strategy meeting was last night

The last off-leash strategy meeting being held by the HRM was held last night - so I went to it to see how things were going and it was pretty interesting. Some good news is that the main bylaw enforcement officer for the city of Calgary has been confirmed to be coming to Halifax April 19th and 20th to give a public talk about what they've done right in that city regarding dog issues - which is very exciting - and John Charles said he's going to let everyone know when the details are confirmed - so when he lets everyone know I'll post the information here. I'm sure it's going to be a super talk because Calgary has a template for dog laws that should be and is being used by smart cities right across the continent.
Last night there was a pretty good turn-out again - John Charles said that more than 230 people have shown up for these sessions in our city of 330,000 and in Vancouver - which is going through the same process that we're currently going through, only 200 people have shown up - and they have a population of 2 million people! So I think we've shown that we care about dog issues.

Everybody has an opinion on this issue and what is the best way to go - - just because you didn't make it to a session doesn't mean that your opinion can't be heard. You can email John Charles at parkdog@halifax.ca and he'll post it to the HRM's website at http://www.halifax.ca/real_property/PublicComments.html which I'm hoping is part of the package he's going to submit to the HRM City Council in April.

I hope we're all on the same side when I say that we're looking to improve the quality of life of our dogs' and we want to do it in a way that makes us not break the law on a daily basis. That would be fabulous. But if I have to break the law on a daily basis, I will. Either that or I'll sell my house and take my tax dollars outside the municipality and move to where I can walk the dogs on crown land legally off-leash everyday. That is a very simple solution I'm also willing to look at - but one that is fiscally very bad for the city if very many dog owners also chose that solution - because there are about 50,000 of us currently paying taxes in the Municipality.