Patch Primer: Local Dog Leash Laws

Over the past week, to four Bay Area public workshops hosted by the National Park Service on proposed regulations that would restrict and in some cases ban dogs from 21 areas within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, including Homestead Valley and Tennessee Valley.

Several events featured opposing the proposals, and the agency has extended the public comment period to May 30, though no more events are scheduled.

The 2,400-page draft plan, first issued Jan. 14, covers 21 specific areas within GGNRA, including a number of popular trails in and around Mill Valley. For each area, the agency has outlined six possible policies and recommended one of them, ranging in severity from banning dogs completely in some areas to restricting the areas where dogs can be off leash in others.

We thought the debate around the proposed regulations within the 75,000-acre parkland provided a good opportunity to delve into the dog leash laws on the rest of the abundant open space around us.

There are nearly 20,000 licensed dogs in Marin, according to the Marin Humane Society, which estimates that there are approximately 60,000 dogs in Marin, based on the assumption that one-third of dog owners license their dogs. These laws don’t apply to city streets and developed areas, where dogs must be under the control of a responsible party at all times.

In Mill Valley, there are 2,661 licensed dogs, the third most in Marin behind only San Rafael and Novato. Based on the humane society’s estimate, there are approximately 8,000 dogs in the 94941 zip code.

For each area of open space, enforcement is handled by both the law enforcement agency for that municipality and animal services officers for the Marin Human Society, which has a joint powers agreement with the county to enforce animal welfare laws throughout the county with the exception of state or federally owned lands.

Because so much of Marin is open space, enforcement is largely complaint-driven, as officers can’t patrol everywhere at once. As a result, agencies hope that dog owners simply abide by posted ordinances, but that isn’t always the case.

“You’ll see at dog parks there will be an ordinance sign posted and people will walk right by it with their dog off a leash,” said Carrie Harrington, spokesperson for the Marin Humane Society.

While dog owners who want to let their pets roam free are feeling the pinch from the park service, Mill Valley is home to one of just a few no-leash dog parks in Marin with the three-acre dog run in . The dog run is one of five no-leash dog parks in Marin, along with two on the humane society's campus in Novato. The Mill Valley dog run was created in December 1995 after extensive lobbying from dog owners like Fred Schein, who said he wishes more agencies would establish leash-free areas when they add restrictions to other areas.

“A lot of these towns and governments see dogs as an afterthought,” Schein said. “But dog owners are a massive group of people here in Marin.”

Technically, dogs are supposed to be on a leash in every other open space in town, according to Mill Valley Parks Superintendent Rick Misuraca.

There are exceptions where no dogs are allowed at all, like on school district property, including the district and ’s campus across from Bayfront, as well as and Alto Field. No dogs are allowed in or on what is now called because dog owners have access to the adjacent dog run and because of the abundance of youth sports that occur in those areas.

According to California State Parks’ Marin District Superintendent Danita Rodriguez, dogs are only allowed in the park’s “developed” areas, meaning roads, campgrounds, picnic areas. They are not allowed on trails or fire roads at all. In areas where they are allowed, they must be on a leash at all times or kept inside a tent, for instance, overnight at a campground.

The park’s peace officers patrol its more than 25,000 acres, and Rodriguez encouraged dog owners to check the various laws of each land owner since so much of Marin’s open space is contiguous with that of other agencies.

“It is really confusing for people,” she said. “They could start out on one land manager’s prop and end up on another who has different regulations.”

No dogs. Period.

With few exceptions (like Santa Margarita Island Preserve in San Rafael), dogs are allowed on all district lands as long as they are on a leash. Dogs are permitted off-leash on the district’s fire roads, but must be on leash when in sensitive areas like Ring Mountain and Bothin Marsh.

The district is currently looking into revising its road and trails management plan, which could mean changes to existing dog leash laws.

Most of the massive watershed falls within the boundary of the Mt. Tamalpais State Game Refuge and is governed by California Department of Fish and Game Dogs laws. That means that dogs are permitted on district lands only when restrained by a leash and under the control of the owner.

This Patch Primer is meant to be a working document and we’ll update it as agencies change their own regulations. If we’ve missed an agency or open space area, let us know in the comments box and we’ll look into it.