SFDOG

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SFDOG has worked with officials from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) to protect off-leash access on lands in the GGNRA. We also monitor the way the SF Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) administers its dog policy, which requires dogs to be on-leash in City parks except in designated off-leash areas. We continue our efforts to change RPD's dog policy.

Founded in 1976 by a group of friends, SFDOG organized more formally in 1997 in reaction to the closing of Ocean Beach in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area to off-leash recreation. While continuing to work for off-leash recreational opportunities for responsible dog owners/guardians and their companion animals, we have expanded our mission to include a variety of programs designed to educate the people of San Francisco about dogs and their place in our culture. We work with dog owners/guardians about what it means to be a responsible dog owner/guardian.

The DEIS needs to provide full disclosure to the public and decision makers. If dogrelated disturbances are having a significant negative effect on wildlife, for example, the DEIS needs to provide site-specific scientific evidence as documentation and undertake a scientific evaluation as to whether people or other factors are also causing or contributing to the problem noted. [You could give examples where the DEIS says there are impacts in an area that you have not observed in that area or where the problem is does not seem to be caused by dog].

My name is XXXX, age 67, former City College instructor, now retired. I have lived in San Francisco for 40 years, and have owned my home in the West of Twin Peaks Area for over 30 years. Since owning my home, I have had a number of active and well behaved and well trained dogs. Being a responsible dog guardian, I have always kept my dogs under voice control and in my sight when walking them in any area where they are off leash. At Fort Funston, where I walk my three dogs frequently, I have always cleaned up after them, and kept them from passing into the fenced off areas.

The DEIS is full of impacts of dogs on wildlife and other park visitors that “could” occur, but there is little evidence that these impacts actually do occur. After over ten years of intensive scrutiny of off-leash dogs in the GGNRA, it should be obvious if those impacts really do occur. The lack of data indicates they do not. For example, the DEIS mentions that disease “could” be transmitted to people from unpicked-up dog feces. However there has not been a single case of dog-feces-caused human illness reported by the San Francisco Department of Health for over 50 years.

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