Dogs, Unleashed

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to cross the Yard. There have been evenings when I walked in late to a meeting in Mather because I had to avoid the perilous Leverett courtyard shortcut. The reason is simple: unleashed dogs.
I’m a self-acknowledged extremist when it comes to this issue. On a backpacking trip, I once made a headfirst dive from the highway concrete to the surrounding farmland due to an approaching dog. I try to make light of the fear, laughing it off with my friends and selling it as that “interesting fact” about myself during group icebreaker exercises. But I’ve had past experiences that make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable around dogs and I know for a fact that I am not alone.
Harvard currently does not feel like the safe home that it should be, not only for me but also for other students uncomfortable with pets. This is a small request to the community that makes use of Harvard’s common grass and a problem that can easily be solved by the officers that guard it: let’s keep the dogs leashed.
A rule against unleashed dogs in the Yard already exists – the intention is certainly there, but the enforcement is clearly lacking. Whatever happened to the promise made in April 2009 that the policy banning unleashed dogs from the Yard will be “strictly enforced in the Yard by the Harvard University Police Department and AlliedBarton security personnel”?
Community members presumably have only good intentions in letting their dogs maraud across the Yard. They view it as an unrestricted space for their beloved pets.  But there is no doubt that there is an un-reconciled disconnect in perspective between dog-fearers and dog-lovers, and my intention behind writing this article is partly to bridge that gap.
I’m prepared to receive dog-lover hate mail. I’m okay with being a laughing stock. But I am sometimes not comfortable walking to class, and that’s a problem. The dog-loving students, faculty, staff, and residents that bring their unleashed pets into school grounds need to expand their perspective to include an understanding for the fear that other members of the community might potentially have for their pets.
Enforcement should be stepped up from both the HUPD and AlliedBarton. Pet-owning community members themselves should exercise measures of self-control to think twice before unleashing their dogs on Harvard’s grass. This is a request that comes from the heart, as I look forward to being able to walk through the neighborhood and the home that we share without taking a circuitous route and constantly looking over my shoulder.