Condo Conundrum

Across the street from Dog Park is the site of an enormous condominium complex under construction. I was out of town for only a week, but the building is progressing rapidly. We Dog Parkers have been trying to gauge the effect that the condos, once opened, will have on our little community, and we are not optimistic.

The view of the condo project from Dog Park

Before the condos, there were two little apartment complexes on the site, filled mostly with college students and the recently divorced, folks who needed a cheap, convenient place to live. A handful of those folks had dogs and were Dog Park regulars. I hate to fall into that trap that long-term Austinites often do of reminiscing about how things were better back when; but the folks who lived in those apartments were usually interesting, and they understood what a great resource Dog Park was. (I, too, once lived across the street from Dog Park, though not in those apartments. Dog Park is one of the reasons I chose to buy a house just half a mile north.) 

In talking to people about the condos, I discover two distinct fears—one is that the people who move into those expensive condos will not be the kind of people we want at Dog Park, and the other is that in a complex as huge as this new one, we will be overrun by hundreds of new people and their animals. This fear of new people is old news at Dog Park. When I first started coming to DP, I was often asked how I found out about it, as if it it were an exclusive restaurant. I never felt unwanted, but I heard talk that some of the more established Dog Parkers were upset by the introduction of new people and animals and wanted to somehow limit or screen new attendees. 

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Dog Park is an organic, free-flowing community. Like a river, it is never the same park twice. People and dogs come and go as they wish. To suggest that there ought to be a gate on our community offends me, even as I cross my fingers in hope that any new people from the condominiums are "like us"—smart, responsible dog owners who pick up poop and make sure their dogs behave. We like to think of ourselves as a liberal-minded group, not only or strictly in the political sense, but in the sense that we all know that we need to get along. Minor differences of opinion and dog-owning practices we can deal with through dialogue and, when that does not work, snubbing. (Dog Park is like high school, remember?) 

To enforce dog park rules is impossible because we don't officially have any. We are not an official park. Yet there are surprisingly few disputes or troubles at DP because most of us respect three unspoken principles: 

1) Pick up the poop. 

2) Keep an eye on your dog at all times. (Cell phone users, you are not as attentive as  you think!) 

3) Leash up or leave if your dog is a biter, a serious trouble-maker, or a runner. 

So, I guess the question is, if we current Parkers figured out these basic principles, why won't the new arrivals from the condos do so, too—especially when the DP is already full of old-school Parkers like ourselves to set them straight? Please let me know what you think, Fellow Parkers. More on this later. . . --zia

A Mile in Their Minds

The trails at our Dog Park roughly form a figure-eight. There's the upper loop and the lower loop, with a trail down the middle the connects both to one of the parking  lots. A full loop is one that encompasses both upper and lower trails. It takes you away from the cars and the company buildings along the trees behind the neighboring houses and the creek bed and back again. There is only a short stretch on the loop where you can't see houses or hear cars on the nearby streets. 

For years, fellow Dog Parkers and I would idly wonder as we strolled,  "How long is a full loop?" Based on no particular measurement, we decided it must be a mile. Surely it was a mile. A mile was a nice neat figure, and it made us feel good when  we managed to circle the Park three times. "I walked three miles today," we could say proudly as we slumped in the shade under the pecan trees and cracked nuts to feed the dogs. 

One day, a fellow named R. decided he would measure the loop. So he went out when no one else was around and walked a full loop while counting his steps. He walked some large number--something in the thousands. Then, because he knew the exactly length of his stride, he calculated that the full loop was really closer to .75  mile. This number did not go over well. How could the loop be less than a mile? People were suspicious of R.'s calculations. He may have been a computer geek, but his political views were a little too Republican. Plus, did anyone actually see him walk the loop? People chose to ignore R.'s calculations.

Later, a young woman named R.L. began training for a marathon. She decided to use her pedometer to measure the full loop so she could run there for training. Her readings were even more drastic. According to R.L., the loop was hardly more than half a mile! Dog Park was shrinking with each calculation! Again, people quibbled. "Well, R.L. has those short little legs, of course her measurements are off." Again, people doubted and kept on walking a loop that was still a mile in their minds. 

Many years later, I still have no idea how long a full loop really is. And I don't want to know. For me, the Loop is a state of mind. Like life, sometimes it feels interminable, especially the uphill part. Sometimes, when I am engaged in conversation or lost in cloud-watching, my girls and I finish a full loop in what feels like seconds. Some days we even lose track of how many loops we've completed. Because that is what Dog Park is about—escaping from the niggling little things. The Park, despite being only hundreds of yards from major Austin thoroughfares, is a little island, a doggy Neverland, that most people don't know exists. It's a place where dogs rule. And, frankly, the dogs don't give a damn how long the loop is. "What loop?," they say. "Just throw the ball! "

Welcome to Dog Park

Dog Park is like high school, only better because it's run by a different kind of mob rule, the rule of dog.There are, as you might expect, the super-athletic, the pedigreed, the shy and submissive, the smart-asses, and the ditzy but friendly types. They mingle and mix, chase balls and each other, as well as the occasional biker or runner. They get along amazingly well. When there are disputes, a well-aimed nip or an insistent growl seems to resolve the problem without intervention from the bipeds.

The bipeds—the owners—or companions—or whatever term you use (a newbie [new to dogs and to Park] once asked if my dog was my “partner.” I considered my husky mix, Roma, and scoffed, “She’s my partner when she helps pays the bills.”)—are really what make Dog Park feel like high school. Again, only better because the nerds (comme moi) now have interesting careers, decent cars, cooler glasses or Lasik surgery, credit cards, and fewer zits. Our job is to chaperone the dogs, but we can’t help “packing up” ourselves. I particularly enjoy walking with a group of single, professional, smart women. Most of us have slipped over the cusp into middle age. (From what I can tell, our demographic is the majority. Men are fewer and tend to be married.) We prefer dogs to men (though perhaps I speak out of turn), and we have a lot to say about the way the world is run (more on that in future posts). This pack, however, like all the packs at Dog Park, is fluid. We drop back on the trail to scoop some poop and find ourselves walking with the guys who watch basketball or program computers or strolling with a microbiology major who studies her dog’s poop with the intensity of an ancient Greek oracle. Mobility is the key, really. Dog Park, unlike tenth-grade math class, is en plein air. If you don’t like the conversation, you keep moving.

I hope that’s what this blog will be about—the issues and conflicts and discussions that come up during my daily walks along the two intersecting loops of trails at my Dog Park, a dusty patch of undeveloped land in the heart of central Austin. I spend hours there every day with my two dogs, and it occurred to me recently that it was time to document a place where so much happens even as it always stays the same. I hope to post regularly. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.--zia