Ticketed For Your Off-Leash Dog? You're Probably Alone.

It’s happened at least ten times since the beginning of the year in Southwest Minneapolis.

You’re playing fetch with, or tossing a frisbee to, or chasing after your dog in a city park—Lyndale, say, or Lynhurst or East Harriet Farmstead—when an officer in the Minneapolis Park Police approaches, fining you up to $200 for walking your dog without a leash.

While the park police and the city of Minneapolis police each have ordinances on the books prohibiting leashless dog walking, both organizations emphasize that the crime is de-prioritized. Still, several of the ten off-leash citations were issued close together earlier this year.

Sgt. William Palmer, a public information officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, said he doubts city officers would cite citizens for the violation and that he believed park police to be the only enforcers of the ordinances.

“I worked that area 14 years, and I never wrote one citation for walking a dog off leash.” “I don’t know when a Minneapolis [police officer] would have the time to deal with something like that.”

Dawn Summers of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board said that park police are not instructed to aggressively pursue dog leash violations. Service animals and off-leash areas are exempt from the Park Board's dog leash ordinance.

“Most of the dog citations have more to do with calls that come in from either park users or residents nearby reporting people violating [leash laws], and that typically means that there’s been at least some perception that that particular dog is not under the control of their owner,” she said. “But I don’t believe that our officers go out looking specifically for people who don’t have dogs on leashes.”

But what do you think? Should the police keep a sharper eye out, or should the community police itself? Or is the leash law in need of revision? Tell us in the comments, below.