If you are a dog owner in Jasper who cares about the off-leash area, the best thing you can do right now is register your pet with the municipality.

That is, if you haven’t already.

An incredible 74 dog licences were purchased within the first 10 days of January. Municipal officials say they have never seen so many dogs registered so quickly. Throughout all of 2011, a total of 174 licences were purchased. That’s still a far cry from the 500-plus dogs that are estimated to reside in town, but it’s a good start to 2012.

The fast pace so far this year is largely due to the efforts of the town’s newest citizen association: the Jasper Dog Owners’ Group – or J-DOG, for short – which was established on Jan. 2. The group has been encouraging residents to license their animals because it understands that, the more confirmed dog owners there are in Jasper, the more weight their collective voice will carry with the municipality.

That’s important because, at this point, dog owners feel like they’re not being heard.

Many people, it seems, assumed the municipality would initiate some kind of public consultation process before proposing new locations for an off-leash area to replace the current site, which is soon to become a construction zone for Jasper’s new high school. Instead, the matter dropped out of the blue onto the Jan. 3 council agenda, catching many by surprise. Dog owners weren’t too thrilled, either, with the proposed new locations for an off-leash area.

There remains an undertone of acrimony in the dog park debate at the moment but, judging from the latest J-DOG meeting on Monday, which I attended, the acrimony seems to be abating.

The group’s chairperson, Kerry Wing, is a strong advocate for her cause but also a good mediator who understands the broader concerns that the municipality must consider when it comes to an off-leash area. She is also working to arrange a meeting between the J-DOG executive and municipal officials next week, before the issue returns to council formally in February.

Better communication will be key to finding a solution that best meets everyone’s needs, and that goes both ways. Municipal officials ought to seek more input from dog owners and dog owners ought to dial down the emotion a bit to help make the discussion go smoothly. As a dog owner myself, I know how emotional people like us can get when it comes to our animals, which we often consider to be more like members of the family than “pets.”

Feelings have been even further heightened in the wake of Wendy Niven’s dog Helio being killed by a wolf in November, followed by the recent wolf sightings in and around town in the past few days. Incredibly, Niven ran into another wolf this week while out with her new dog on the Cabin Creek Fire Road. She describes the encounter in detail on the “Jasper Bark in the Park” Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/barkinthepark. It’s worth a read.

The presence of these predators has justifiably made many dog owners reluctant to take their animals out on Jasper’s trails, especially alone, making a fenced-in off-leash area all the more important. Some are also justifiably worried about the prospect of walking alone to one of the more remote proposed dog park locations on Sleepy Hollow Road, given the wolf threat.

The clock is ticking for a decision to be made, with construction of the new school set to begin as early as May or June. Fortunately, there is still enough time for some civil discussion. If all the interested parties take a collective deep breath, I’m sure a reasonable solution can be found.

Personally, I think a centrally located off-leash area makes the most sense, but if that can’t happen, a pair of dog parks at opposite ends of the town would be the next best thing. But as long as there is a safe place for me to take my dog, Oota, to play with his friends and run off leash, I will take him there.

And, since he’s one of the 74 newly registered dogs in town, I’ll give him the last word here, in the form of the photo above.

After all, who can resist the puppy eyes?

DISCLAIMER: The Last Word is an opinion column, it is meant to provoke thought and debate. As such, any opinions written here are the writer’s own and do not reflect the viewpoint of any other Fitzhugh staff member or the directors of the Jasper Media Group Inc.