A Leash for Rusty

In Denver (pop. 480,000 humans) people are divided: some like Denver's dogs (pop. 36,000) on the loose and some like them on leashes. Until recently, the city council avoided a leash law. This year, with 654 dogbites reported by May, the issue went on the ballot. No other civic problem worked up so much sentiment and spleen. "Dogs that are tied up and fenced continuously will become excited and grieved," warned grieved, excited Attorney Philip Rossman, the Denver dog's best friend. "On behalf of Rusty, my old Irish setter," the Denver Post's veteran Statehouse Reporter Bert Hanna wrote a misty-eyed protest: "It will be the end of Rusty. He could not live under those restrictions . . . When this law is passed, he will pass quietly away."

Jack Frank, an anti-dog man, replied in a Post column: "Should the law pass, [doglovers] say, thousands of dogs, all named 'Rusty,' will develop cardiac conditions and die brokenhearted . . . The insidious dog propaganda machine . . . would make you believe any man who has a reverent dislike for dogs is a rotter who would water his children's milk to cut down on his overhead. Why should a dog with whom I have nothing in common . . . be given the right to bound over me and lick my face? Why should I walk along a darkened street with an unleashed hound sniffing around my ankles as if I were a mobile hydrant?"

Few politicians gave tongue on the issue, but City Council Candidate Frank Gold came out flatly for dogs and against leashes. "I am not afraid," said Gold boldly. At the election he was defeated, and the leash law was passed by a solid majority, 55,013 to 39,917. Last week, adding impost to injury, the Denver Health Department proposed a tax on pet food to pay for the law's enforcement. Mayor Quigg Newton quickly killed the idea, but bristling dog owners held a protest meeting to plan repeal of the leash law at the August city election.

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