Spot: A Contemporary Retelling

See Spot running around the Ravine without a leash. All dogs are supposed to be on a leash in the Ravine. Where is Spot’s leash? Can anybody find Spot’s leash? The three people in charge of Spot didn’t seem to have a leash among them. Oh, well.

Spot has found a way through the fence. Smart Spot! The fences are meant to keep people and dogs out of the Ravine landscape — you may recall it cost $10 million to rehabilitate this part of the park in the 1990s after decades of abuse.

Spot doesn’t know that off-leash hours only pertain to the Long Meadow, Nethermead, and Peninsula. These off-leash rules do not include any of the spaces, like the Ravine, in-between these meadows. We don’t expect Spot to know the rules, but we do expect Spot’s people to know the rules. Do Spot’s people know the rules? Hard to say. Some dog people do, some dog people don’t. The ones who do and still go unleashed say “Fuck You!” to other users of the park.

What other users? Well, there were those two Northern Waterthrush on the other side of the fence. Bye, bye, Northern Waterthrush. Can’t feed there, not with Spot on the wrong side of the fence. You’ve flown all the way up from the Caribbean/Central America, but the self-styled rights of some dog owners to flout the rules obviously trump your rights. Fuck you, Northern Waterthrush!

Spot isn’t alone. During off-leash hours in the aforementioned meadows, the majority of dogs in the Ravine are also off-leash.

Why should Spot’s people suffer from such tyranny as a leash law in the Ravine, parts of which are unfenced (not that Spot cares about fences), and the Lullwater (largely unfenced)? For one thing, it’s nesting season, when fledglings out of the nest are often found on the ground. Last year, we had to help a gosling back through the fence so it wasn’t on the Ravine path. Luckily, the only dog there at the time was well-trained and on a leash.

Prospect Park, unlike Central Park, has luckily been largely, but not completely, free of rabid raccoons in recent years. There is no guarantee that this lucky status will continue. Many a rogue dog owner, self-proclaimed anarchists against the law — let my dogs go! — actually endanger their dogs, and themselves, by letting them unleashed in the park’s woodlands.

See Spot’s people pull Spot back through the fence. See Spot’s people curse the birders, who called for them to get their dog, as they pass a sign that says dogs need to be leashed in the Ravine at all times.