Animal 411

Parks Officials Plan Improvements To Grounds at Spencer’s Run Dog Park in Waveny

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Parks officials may try fencing off portions of Waveny’s dog run this spring and then again in the fall in order to re-grade the area so it’s safer for all the mammals who go there. The root systems of trees that used to stand in what is now Spencer’s Run have rotted underground, creating bumps and divots in the popular dog park that appear flat after mowing, according to Kit Devereaux, a regular park user (with her white poodle, named ‘Louis Armstrong’). So when the grass grows over those areas “it creates sort of a trap, and so they [a committee of volunteer liaisons between Spencer’s Run and the town] would like to have half of it re-graded and then other half re-graded,” Devereaux told members of the Park & Recreation Commission Wednesday night at their regular meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. If New Canaan’s parks superintendent deems it a worthwhile project, half of Spencer’s Run could be cordoned off and re-graded now through June, and then the full park would be available to paying users through the summer, with the second half addressed in the fall, Devereaux said. Asked whether there are any concerns about the remaining space being too small for visitors (there are some 480 registered users of Spencer’s Run, two-thirds of them nonresidents who pay higher fees), Recreation Director Steve Benko said that the area being looked at now “still has a decent amount of grass.”

“So he [the parks superintendent] can go in, he can aerate it, he can over-seed it, he can get the grass to grow fast.

Government

‘Eyes for the Town’: Park & Rec Approves Slate of Citizen Liaisons To Spencer’s Run

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Parks officials on Wednesday approved a slate of 12 citizen volunteers who will act as liaisons to the town from the popular dog park at Waveny. Spencer’s Run regular Kit Devereaux, owner of a handsome white poodle named ‘Louis’ (after Louis Armstrong), told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular monthly meeting that the volunteers will serve as “the eyes for the town, because once you have people with dogs it can get dicey.”

“They are not there to enforce the rules. They are there to remind people of them, and if people do not follow them, then they call Animal Control,” Devereaux said during the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. The volunteers are also there “to make people feel welcome and to keep the bags [dispenser] at Spencer’s full,” she added. “I would like everyone to think what would happen at the dog park if they [the bags] ran dry—it would get very interesting, very fast,” Devereaux said.

Animal 411

Increased Patrols Slated For Spencer’s Run As Oct. 15 Keycode Renewal Date Nears

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Officials are urging humans who use Spencer’s Run to renew their keycode passes ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline, as the town prepares to re-set access codes to the popular Waveny dog park. New Canaan likely will offer a short grace period so that dog owners have time to apply in person at Waveny House for new passes, Recreation Director Steve Benko said. After that time—say, Nov. 1—anyone who hasn’t renewed will not be able to enter the dog run.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Police have told an out-of-town man to keep his 5-year-old female golden-doodle out of the dog park at Waveny until he gets the animal spayed. The dog (her name is Amber) is in heat and on a recent weekday evening her owner upset other Spencer’s Run users when he got angry about male dogs in the park trying to mount her. We’re hearing that the man grabbed the male dogs and yanked them off of his fetching female, as though it was their fault. Officials say that if the out-of-towner returns with the dog un-spayed, he’ll be ticketed and his PIN number to enter Spencer’s Run revoked. ***

Though the property owner at the Bank of America building on Elm Street could not be reached for comment after town officials blasted the condition of the planters out front, he appears to have taken at least one major step toward addressing the problem. Within days of a meeting of the Plan of Conservation & Development Implementation Committee that saw some members refer to the area as a “non-garden,” a crew appeared in the morning to install new flowers, topsoil, gravel and plants there.

Animal 411

Police: New Canaan Woman Bit by Dog at Waveny, Owner Walked Away

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A New Canaan woman told police she was bit in the back by a dog as she walked past the animal on a recent afternoon near Spencer’s Run, officials say. It happened near (but not inside) the dog run at Waveny as the woman walked past three German shepherd dogs who appeared to be undergoing training with their owner, the complainant said. When one dog lunged and bit her below the right shoulder, the owner—a woman described as being white, in her mid-50s and wearing a pink short-sleeved shirt—said nothing and offered no apology, according to a police report. The dog is described as tan with a black patch. Animal Control Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt said there’s little she can do except try to assess who the owner is by interviewing the victim.