Leash Laws

Dear Mayor Billy Paul Carneal,

I’m writing to complain about the unenforced dog leash and fence laws in Springfield, Tennessee. It’s bad enough that when I drive to town from Cedar Hill I almost wreck my Honda daily because loose dogs chase after me on narrow country roads. Or that these unleashed and unfenced animals breed unrestricted, creating an animal overpopulation problem that costs taxpayers thousands of dollars.

But when I’m in a city park and the leash laws aren’t recognized, it’s just plain wrong. And it makes our community look bad to both tourists and recent transplants from other parts of the country.

I foster animals for a local animal welfare agency called I Could Have Been Adopted. Our organization is a grass roots movement working to find permanent homes for the hundreds of homeless animals roaming our small agrarian county. I walk both my dogs and my foster dogs on the Springfield Greenway (normally one of the most picturesque and pleasant destinations in Robertson County) but recently I’ve had numerous incidents when an unleashed dog approached my leashed animals.

In fact, once last summer the infamous Bruno, a twenty-five-pound brown and black mutt that walks loose with his owner attacked one of my foster dogs. I literally had to separate them with my foot or one of those dogs would have gotten hurt. When the incident happened, the owner was fifty yards away with her back turned. I’ve repeatedly asked her to control him, but she remains defiant. I also know that my walking partner has written to you several times about Bruno and his irresponsible owner. In fact, my friend had to stop walking her dog Ellie on the greenway altogether because she’s afraid her own restricted but fear-aggressive Ellie will hurt Bruno. How is this fair and why is it still allowed to happen?

On both ends of the park the leash laws are posted, but the park’s rules and regulations are in small print, behind glass, and hard to find. I recommend two courses of action. First, the Springfield Police Department needs to assign bicycle patrols to ride the greenway and enforce the laws, giving tickets to whoever violates it. Secondly, the city should invest in leash law signs that are clearly posted at each end of the park, as well as a few higher spots in between. I say high spots because I know that flooding from the Sulphur Fork Creek is a problem.

If action isn’t take by the city, then I will be forced to drive to Clarksville or White House and use their greenways, where the leash laws are enforced, which in turn will force me to spend my grocery, gas, and errand money in other cities. Springfield’s businesses will lose every bit of revenue they might have made off of me. I won’t be the only one either. I’ve run into quite a few responsible dog owners that have already stopped coming to the Springfield Greenway because of the amount of unleashed dogs. Please help make our community a better place and enforce our laws.

Thank you,

Melissa Armstrong